


a million reasons to let you go

by sinfulchihuahua0602



Category: DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon), How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst with a Happy Ending, Astrid Hofferson-centric, BAMF Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Bad Parent Stoick the Vast, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Feral Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III & Toothless Friendship, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III and Dragons, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Astrid Hofferson Fluff, Hurt Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Interrogation, POV Astrid Hofferson, POV Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Protective Astrid Hofferson, Stoick Is Trying, Stoick's A+ Parenting, he's a little confused but he got the spirit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 43,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27007270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinfulchihuahua0602/pseuds/sinfulchihuahua0602
Summary: Runts are not allowed to live in the tribe of Berk. As a baby, the unnamed son of Stoick the Vast is sent away on a ship in exile, to either die on the ship or be raised on another island.Nineteen years later, Astrid walks into the cove on the island of Berk, and finds a boy and a Night Fury.
Comments: 105
Kudos: 319





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i am on my feral hiccup bullshit now, in the process of writing a vigcup fic with dragon hybrid hiccup, and yeeting 40k of feral hiccup at you all right now.
> 
> this is all Le'letha's fault because of her fic [Nightfall](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1912266/chapters/4125624) which ruined my life, and because i'm such a nice person, i'm gonna recommend it to you all to ruin your life too. (beneath all the insults i really mean it's an amazing fic and i love it so much)
> 
> credit also goes to the Nightfall series, and Le'letha, for the dragonspeak and hiccup and toothless's nicknames for each other in this fic. :D

There are rumors of a ghost on Berk. 

No one pays attention to the boy running through the night, surrounded by flames and beating wings and fierce roars. No one notices the contraption he pushes in front of him, up to the highest point he can find, right in front of where the stars wink out as a shape flies across them. 

He swings the weapon towards the sky, pulls back all the triggers and levers, and  _ waits.  _ Green eyes track the stars, track the black velvet of the night, and the roles are switched suddenly - hunter becomes the hunted, by a boy of barely eight who’s smarter than anyone gives him credit for, almost too smart for his own good. His father certainly seems to think so. 

Violet fire flashes, accompanied by a high-pitched shrieking whistle, and a watchtower explodes in a shower of wood and sparks to Hiccup’s left. For the briefest blink of a second, the flames illuminate a black shape blotting out the stars, melting against the night, and Hiccup shoots blindly at the half-visible shadow, the dragon that haunts nightmares and the night sky. 

It all happens very quickly after that. He’s thrown back by the force of his victory, wood slamming into his shoulders and back hitting the hard dirt, and doesn’t have time to celebrate before he stands up and turns. A Nightmare flares in front of him, teeth bared in a growl and wings spread menacingly, the heat of the flames warming Hiccup’s skin almost dangerously. 

Then there is a flash of red and a massive form, Stoick’s withering glare shot at him and clearly visible even in the dark night as he slams his axe into the side of the dragon’s face, and Hiccup takes that opportunity to slip into the shadows - the same as the Night Fury, he thinks briefly, and isn’t that odd - back to his house, thoughts racing with the images of the flash of purple fire and the dark shape falling down from the sky, like a meteor. 

_ Raven’s Point.  _ He fell just off Raven’s Point, Hiccup repeats in his head, like a mantra.

-0-0-0-

The door slamming is a louder noise than Hiccup remembers, and he tenses from his spot laying on his bed. The flash of black against the flames, the way the stars were extinguished for half a second like they were simple candles, flees from his mind as he sits up, his father stomping into the room. 

“Dad-“

Stoick glares up at Hiccup from where he slides to perch on the side of his loft, legs hanging down, and his voice cuts off whatever pleas Hiccup tries to make. “What were you  _ doing  _ out there, Hiccup? You could’ve been seen!” he growls. 

Hiccup rolls his eyes, not threatened in the least by his father. He’ll learn, he knows, when he comes back with the head of a Night Fury. They’ll all learn. “No concern for whether I could’ve gotten  _ killed,  _ I see,” he says instead, tone flat and injected with all the sarcasm his eight-year-old body holds - which is quite a lot. 

Stoick barrels on, heedless as ever of his son’s remarks. “You were out there. If you got killed, it would be your own fault. I tried to protect you, but you won’t  _ listen  _ to me!”

“And  _ why  _ should I?” Hiccup asks sharply, turning his own fierce glare on his father. “In case you haven’t noticed, you don’t listen to  _ me  _ either _ ,  _ Dad!” he almost  _ hisses,  _ green eyes incensed. “I’m barely even a  _ person _ , here. The disgraced son, who was supposed to be sent off to sea as a child, but instead, was kept by his father and made to live as a  _ ghost  _ in the village! Honestly, I don’t know what’s worse. Actually being dead, or being seen as dead.”

Stoick goes quiet at the same time Hiccup does, his eyes widening at the words that had come out. His tone drops instantly, voice turning pleading again, trying to make up for the sheer magnitude of this mistake he’s made. “Dad, I’m sorry, I didn’t-“

“I think it’s time, son,” Stoick says quietly. 

Hiccup freezes. No.  _ No.  _ “What?”

Stoick turns and sets his weapons down, movements calm as he picks up wood from the stack by the door and sets it on the stack of burned wood in the fire. “You’re old enough,” he continues, voice still that horrifying, very un-Stoick-like quiet calm. “I can’t keep this up forever. Eventually, the village is going to find out that you’re alive, and all of my efforts will be for naught. It’s time.”

Hiccup’s breath comes shallow in his chest, his heart pounding wildly. Stoick can’t do this to him, he’s not an adult yet, he  _ can’t- _

“You have to go,” Stoick continues, something like grief in his voice - but that can’t be real, not with what he’s doing now, not with the bleak future that he’s forcing on Hiccup. “There will be a ship on the other side of the island in three days’ time. You have one hour to pack up everything you need, and then you must leave.” Finally, his gaze turns up to Hiccup, half-draped in shadow from his place on the edge of his loft, and sitting perfectly still, frozen in fear and shock. “You were exiled years ago, Hiccup, as a child. I’m only doing you a favor by following through. The village won’t be kind to you if they find out you’re here.”

Something goes cold inside Hiccup, then. Some light, some hope that his father would accept him someday. Even as _the_ _ghost of Berk,_ even as the disgraced, runt son who is supposed to have either been dead or raised on another island. He had always thought, maybe, if he tries hard enough, well...

Hiccup’s green eyes go flinty, the way he’d learned years ago when he first discovered power and who held it and who didn’t - and he didn’t hold it, he figured out very quickly - and he feels a different sort of fire rising in him. “Okay, Dad,” he says quietly, and his boots barely whisper against the wood of the loft as he silently packs up what little things he has. His notebooks, some charcoal, food and his waterskin, his dagger. The loudest noise is that of Hiccup’s chair scraping over the wood as he pulls it to the window and climbs up, sliding out of the opening and down to the ground. He doesn’t look back. 

Instead, he looks up at the dark forest in front of him, feels the new fire inside him burning bright and harsh and determined. Hiccup starts running, fast and quiet, slipping into the shadows as he’s done all his life, as he’s been doing since he first knew what he was and that he had to  _ hide _ , from everyone and everything. 

Just like a ghost. 

-0-0-0-

A boy of eight comes upon a trapped Night Fury, bound in rope. He takes his knife and cuts through the ropes, and follows the dragon to the cove it escapes to. 

-0-0-0-   
  


Astrid hasn't been near the cove for years, but her axe thuds just as satisfyingly into the trees around it and the bark makes just as good of a canvas for her to imagine Snotlout's face, broken by the steel of her blade as she hurls it at the wood. She fumes, yelling her frustration into the sky and channeling it into the power and precision behind her throws.

She’s going to be _married_ to him. Sold off like livestock, because the Jorgensen family is inheriting the chiefdom and the Hofferson family needs money and power and respect. It undermines everything that Astrid has worked for, her own respect in the village as a warrior before a woman and more likely to throw an axe in your face than to do your laundry or cook for you. It undermines her as a _person_ , not a docile _wife_ to be ordered about by an arrogant man.

She stalks off through the forest, slashing the plants in her way and growling hate at the trees as she embeds her axe in them before yanking it back out again and repeating the process. It’s not as satisfying as it would be if she could actually sink the steel into Snotlout’s smug face, but it’ll have to do, and she has a vivid imagination. Especially when it comes to hurting Snotlout. 

She looks up, seeing the crash trail that’s been there for years. The trees were nearly razed when the Vikings first found it ten years ago, like something massive had landed and skidded down the hill, leaving a deep trench in the dirt and smashing every plant and animal in its way, including several unfortunate trees. They’d searched up and down the trail, finding only the cove with its lake and waterfall at one end and a crater of disrupted dirt at the other end. No dragon, like they’d originally thought, and no other animal was massive enough to make that kind of track.

Since then, most of the foliage has grown back, some adolescent trees growing back in the other’s place after they were cleared out for wood, but there’s still a clear line between the old forest and the new one, curving down towards the cove. Astrid follows it, spinning her axe in her hands, thinking of increasingly non-lethal painful places to shove her axe and various other weapons into Snotlout. 

There may be no avoiding the marriage, she thinks bitterly, and nearly throws her axe into another tree at that thought, but she’s not going to make it easy for Snotlout. If there’s one thing Astrid can’t, and  _ won’t  _ be, it’s a docile house-wife. She’s going to make him  _ regret  _ it, if it’s the last thing she ever does.

Astrid ducks automatically underneath the tunnel that leads into the cove, slipping easily down the familiar path to the ground. The rock she usually sits on is there as always, but her anger doesn’t let her sit. She paces, walks around the lake and splashes water on her face, and slowly her anger drains away to a simmer. 

Oh, it’s not gone. Not at all. She’s just not wasting her energy on throwing her axe anymore, and is waiting to use her energy on making Snotlout regret all his life choices. 

She walks towards the waterfall, silently seething, and lets herself calm down slightly by admiring the crystal-clear water as it tumbles down, like glass shards, or diamonds. Behind it, the shadows of the water play on the wet stone, reflecting the fall. 

Except, the shadows are deeper and darker, and Astrid tilts her head, walking closer around the side of the waterfall and studying the stone behind it. 

The shadow of the waterfall isn’t there. Instead, there’s a deep black void, with a few scattered rays of sunlight shining like bars on the stone across from the opening - a  _ cave,  _ she realizes suddenly. There’s a cave behind the waterfall. 

Well, she never was one to leave things alone, and imagine if there’s a  _ dragon  _ in there. It would be a good way to expel her anger at Snotlout, she thinks, and raises her axe as she walks into the shadows. 

It’s a small opening, barely enough for a Nadder to get through, so she rules out some of the bigger dragon species - Monstrous Nightmare, for one, and perhaps a Zippleback if they didn’t squeeze. She thinks a Zippleback would only pick this as a resting space if it was desperate, because it’s definitely not big enough for their entire body to fit easily into. 

Axe over her shoulder, she creeps forward, and then pauses when she hears the sound of light breathing. 

There’s no dragon, however. The cave is dark, and the sunlight doesn’t add much light to see by, so Astrid is going in practically blind. Not a huge comfort, when her enemies are hundreds of pounds heavier than her and can breathe fire. 

Wait. The cave is dark. 

She studies the shadows again, specifically the dark spot by the far wall, and sees it rise slightly before deflating again. Rise and deflate. Rise and deflate. 

Her eyes make out the sinuous curve of a scaled spine, a tail curled around, a wing half-extended. On the other end, the dark, vague shape of a head, paws, and some slightly oval shape on those paws, a silhouette too dark to make out. 

Astrid gasps as she realizes what she’s looking at, and backs away in shock. 

It’s a Night Fury. She stumbled upon a Night Fury,  _ sleeping.  _

The sound of breathing stutters for just a moment, and she finds green eyes locked on her suddenly, nearly glowing in the dark. The sun shifts just right at that moment, illuminating a face with freckles, cheek pressed against the Fury’s folded paws, the rest of the body covered by the protective (or possessive?) wing and tail curled around him, and finally a messy tangle of auburn hair at the head. 

A  _ human _ head. And a human face, and a (supposedly) human body. Curled up with a Night Fury, face peaceful, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. 

She glances back at the dragon, whose green eyes are still tracking her, and realizes that the only reason she isn’t dead right now is that the Fury doesn’t want to disturb the sleeping boy. Maybe he’s its friend, she thinks, or maybe he’s prey. 

She’s going with the latter. 

She can feel her breath coming short, heart pounding, but her grip doesn’t slip on her axe. She hasn’t trained for her entire life to miss out on the one and only opportunity she might ever have to kill a Night Fury.

She does stand frozen, though, for much longer than she’d ever admit, her blue eyes locked on the Fury’s green ones. 

It takes her several moments to hear the low rumble vibrating through the cavern, coming from the dragon, apparently, in very obvious threat. She takes a breath, briefly running through just how much of a bad idea this is, an image of the Book of Dragons page on Night Furies flashing through her mind. 

_ Hide, and pray it does not find you.  _

She raises her axe, fingers tightening, and gives a cry before charging forward. 

Astrid gets three steps and through processing the lightning-quick movement and high shriek of the Fury before she feels her skin heat as a bright flash of purple fire singes her arm and hair. She yells in surprise and at the shadow of pain, turning briefly to see the scorch mark on the stone behind her, feeling the last traces of the scalding heat that had skimmed her skin. 

And then she realizes she can  _ see  _ the scorch mark. 

She turns back around and sees the Night Fury crouched around the boy, who’s now half-standing and half-crouching, one hand on the Fury’s scales, which vibrate with a low, steady growl, and the other hand holds a-

Flaming sword?

Astrid glances between the three, first at the flaming sword - she really has to get one of those, she thinks first, once she figures out how he did it - and then the Fury, whose tail is still curled around the boy, wings folded against its side and its body curving around him as he stands, and then she looks at the boy. 

He has the same green eyes as the Fury, and they’re fixed on her just like the dragon, the firelight from the sword playing across his tangle of auburn hair and freckled face. The bright green shades with something almost like recognition, obvious intelligence flashing through his eyes as he glances at her axe, then back at her face, still in that tense half-crouched position. Astrid has the absurd thought that it’s part dragon and part human, the way he’s standing with his knees bent slightly, in the curve of the dragon’s body like it’s as natural as sleeping with his head resting against the creature’s paws. 

Still, Astrid can’t think of this man as human. Nothing about this is human. “What  _ are  _ you?” she asks instead, adrenaline still making her body shake with the thought that she’d almost died. Not that she hadn’t expected to, charging at a Night Fury, but that doesn’t make it any less terrifying. 

The boy doesn’t respond, but he does step forward, the sword held in his hand with far too much familiarity for Astrid’s liking. Facing a Night Fury is hard enough, but a boy with a flaming sword? Her odds are significantly lowered, even from the sliver-thin they had been before. 

He gives a low growl of his own, slicing the sword in front of him, and Astrid instinctively takes a step back at the warm threat against her skin. She glances between the Fury, who’s still vibrating with that low, steady growl, and the boy, whose green eyes are flinty and who takes another step forward. 

She nods, the weight of just how far she’s in over her head dropping on her suddenly, and then turns and runs, heart pounding wildly and adrenaline shooting through her. She hears a strange hiss from behind her, and then the Night Fury breathes down her neck. 

Its claws graze her back as she rolls away, a growl coming from behind her as she screams and keeps running, sprinting out of the cave and climbing up the cove wall faster than she’s ever done before. Black streaks past her peripheral view, and Astrid gasps in sheer terror as she sprints out the tunnel and through the forest, up the crash trail and towards Berk as fast as humanly possible. 

She doesn’t  _ hear  _ the dragon, exactly, but she feels its paw land against her back and she turns, wildly swinging her axe with all her strength and feeling the flat of it connect against something hard. She doesn’t pay attention to the hurt yelp behind her, or the frustrated growl, because she’s already turned around again and started running. 

Her breath comes in short pants, every nerve alive with the threat and the chase, feeling the soft thuds of the dragon’s paws as it hunts her. She doesn’t have time to wonder why it won’t just take off and catch her that way, because she sees the houses of Berk in the distance and puts on a desperate burst of speed. 

Within seconds, she hears the Night Fury’s growls grow more distant, and turns around just for a glance of the dragon pacing at the treeline, wings half-spread and the boy coming up behind it, placing one hand on the dragon’s nose and watching her sprint into the village. 

She keeps going all the way through town, up to Stoick’s house, before slowing, out of breath, and knocking on the door. She’s still panting, but what she just saw can’t wait. The dragon and the boy can’t escape before Berk finds them, especially not when she almost died running from them. 

The door opens and Astrid looks up, and up, and  _ up,  _ until she finally meets the confused, slightly irritated eyes of Stoick the Vast, who looks down at her, a frown set into his face. “Astrid?”

She gasps, doubling over for a moment with her hands on her knees, and finally looks up again and pants out, “Night Fury. There’s a Night Fury.”

Stoick’s frown gets deeper, and heavier, and a harsh light enters his eyes. “Where is this coming from?”

She shakes her head, waving one hand. “I almost  _ died!”  _ she bursts out, looking up at Stoick with all the honesty she can muster. Bluffing about something like this is not tolerated in Berk, and if they don’t believe her…

“I was- in the cove, and I went-“ she pants, but keeps going, “-went behind the waterfall, and found a  _ cave,  _ and there was- there was a Night Fury, I swear to Thor, Chief, it shot at me and started chasing me-“

“Shh, Astrid. Calm down,” Stoick rumbles, and she trails off into breathless silence, watching him as he looks up and out at the village. He glances to his right, and Astrid notices Gobber standing there - when did he get here? - before Stoick speaks, voice hard. “Gather a team to go after the Night Fury.” He looks back at Astrid, whose eyes are wide and who still hasn’t completely caught her breath. “It won’t survive until nightfall if I have anything to say about it.”

Gobber nods. “Righty then,” he says, and turns away, lumbering down the hill and towards the village, starting to call out orders to the few villagers who’d gathered to watch Astrid’s wild sprint. 

Astrid gives a half-smile, feeling a familiar fire spark in her at the thought of getting vengeance on the creature who nearly killed her. She doesn’t tell him about the boy, but she doesn’t need to. She wants him to herself, and besides, maybe he can still be saved, if only she can separate him and his dragon. 

“Thank you, Chief,” she says, and her smile grows a bit wider at the same fire reflected in Stoick’s eyes as he looks down at her. 

“That Night Fury won’t be allowed on my island roaming free,” he replies, a dark note in his voice.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiccup's hood is based on, and inspired by, this art by eynvie on tumblr:
> 
> https: // smalltreenergy.tumblr.com / post / 172524096562 / nelts-eynvie-i-wanted-to-draw-hiccup-in-a
> 
> (remove the spaces)

It’s nearing mid-afternoon when the party sets out, made up of Spitelout, Astrid as leader, Gobber, and at least a dozen other villagers who’d volunteered to catch - and hopefully kill - the dragon. Astrid personally wants to stab the creature, for the heated threat it had shot past her and just barely threw - because she knows Night Furies never miss, that shot was on purpose - but she figures she’ll settle for one of the others killing it as well. 

The forest is eerily quiet as she leads them to the crash trail, down to the cove, and into the cave behind the waterfall. There’s nothing there, of course - she wasn’t stupid enough to think that the boy and the dragon would stick around once they knew she would most likely tell the village about them - but one of the villagers stays to patrol the cove, and the rest gather around her as she gives orders. 

“Scatter,” she tells them, a determined set to her face and a fiery light in her eyes, both reflected back at her by the villagers as they heft their weapons. “Don’t stray too far from each other. We can’t face the dragon-“ she nearly says  _ and the boy,  _ before cutting herself off, “-alone, but together it won’t attack us. Search the forest around this cove. We meet back here in an hour.”

She receives nods and murmurs of acquiescence in return, and watches as they climb up out of the cove and vanish into the forest around it. She nods at the villager patrolling the cove itself, then looks up at the forest again. 

She just hopes she isn’t sending them to their deaths. She may be confident, but confidence does nothing against the jaws of a Night Fury glowing purple with flame and poised to kill you. 

Astrid sets her own path out of the cove and into the forest, stepping lightly and taking note of the sun, the way the wind blows, the ground beneath her feet. She’s nowhere near as stealthy as the dragon can be, she knows, but she’s going to get damn close if it means the difference between life and death - for both her and the villagers entrusted to her by Stoick on this search party. 

The same chilly silence follows her as she walks, axe first swinging from her hand by her side, and then as the day wears on and half an hour passes, hefted over her shoulder, and finally, ten minutes later, held in both hands and swung with frustrated growls at the trees. 

Nothing. Forty minutes searching, and absolutely nothing to show for it except for a few dents in the trees, which weren’t at all satisfying like she’d hoped they’d be. 

She growls. “Where,” she says, slamming the steel of her axe into a tree before yanking it out, “is that Thor-forsaken-“ she slams the axe again, and yanks it out-

Black streaks past her view, her fingers slip on her axe as something crashes into her, and she feels the hard ground press harshly into her back, hot breath fanning over her face. 

Astrid stares into the green eyes of the Night Fury crouched above her, one paw shoved against her chest and claws dangerously close to her throat, a low growl rumbling in its throat, and she doesn’t have the thought to scream. She lays frozen, paralyzed in fear, mouth open and eyes wide while her mind races with the wish for her axe, wish for anything to defend herself with. 

The dragon’s jaw opens, a violet flame rising in its throat and a high shriek building. Astrid shuts her eyes, praying silently to the gods, turning her head to the side and hoping that her search party doesn’t come to find her. She hopes that they go back to Berk, and don’t ever come back into this forest. 

_ Hiss-click.  _

The shriek dies, the heat warming Astrid’s face fading, and instead is replaced by a low, questioning warble. She hesitantly opens her eyes, turning her face to the dragon crouched over her. 

And a hooded figure, with one hand on its nose and seemingly staring down the pleading green of the Fury’s gaze. She holds her breath, watching the two of them, hearing the same strange hisses, clicks, and whistles emit from the hooded figure’s mouth. 

The Night Fury lets out another short, questioning warble. The hooded figure responds with that series of noises. 

And the dragon backs down, turning its gaze back to her with only a harsh glare. She lets out her breath, trembling with the sheer force of the adrenaline rushing through her at how close she’d come to dying - twice, in a single day, by the same dragon - and the way her heart is pounding wildly against her ribcage. 

Her attention flicks to the hooded figure, who’s standing beside the dragon, hand still on its nose. He turns to face her, and she gives a small, sharp breath as she sees the boy from before’s face beneath the hood, the bright, intelligent green of his eyes feeling as if it's pinning her down, even without the dragon’s paw on her. 

The paw lifts just then, and the dragon steps back. Astrid stays frozen for a moment longer before slowly raising herself up on her elbows, attempting to will her body not to shake as she sits up and starts to stand. 

Teeth latch onto the back of her shirt and she yelps, her feet lifting from the ground as what she assumes is the Night Fury carries her. The boy steps around in front of her then, just as her mouth opens to call out for help, and the scream dies as soft fabric is pushed into her mouth. 

It’s almost  _ gentle,  _ the way the boy pushes the strip of cloth in and ties it around her head, and she finds herself with nothing else to do but study his face. He’s not rough with her, he doesn’t look at all like he wants her for anything…  _ other.  _ His bottom lip pulls in just slightly in concentration, gaze fixed on one hand as it disappears behind her head and his fingers work quickly to tie the knot. Freckles dust his pale skin, and his auburn hair, hidden mostly by the furred hood - too long, she thinks, from her earlier view of it in the cave - looks absurdly soft from where she stands; or, well, doesn’t stand, in her case. 

He steps back, eyes flicking finally to hers, and it’s then that Astrid realizes she should’ve fought him, the trance suddenly broken. She growls then, lifting her hands and narrowing her eyes to try to yank the gag out and scream for help, writhing to escape the Fury’s teeth still latched in a near vice-grip on her shirt. 

The boy steps forward again, hands reaching out and catching her arms, smoothing down from her shoulders until his fingers loosely curl around her wrists, and somehow that’s enough to hold her in place. Astrid glares at him, finding only a pool of earnest green, like bright spring grass, staring back at her without a trace of malice or ill will. 

Her glare softens without her consent, suddenly deciding that she doesn’t want to fight him just yet, and she looks down at where his hands still cradle her wrists. He pulls away quickly, almost  _ apologetic,  _ as if he didn’t want to do that. She’d think it was because he touched her without her consent, but given that she’s currently gagged and held in a Night Fury’s jaws - gagged by  _ him,  _ no less - she finds that hard to believe. 

It’s still gentler than most situations she’d find herself in, if approached by a man, gagged, and held in place - by dragon or human - and she can’t help but be grateful for that. 

Still not okay, though. And she isn’t making friends with this boy. She’s going to kill his dragon, and then she’s going to take him to Berk and either let him become one of them, or kill him. It’s quite a simple choice, for both of them. 

The Night Fury crouches, head tilting, and it’s only when the dragon’s posture dips just slightly, the boy disappearing out of view, before leveling out, does she realize that the boy is on the Night Fury’s back. Riding it. Like a- like a horse. Like it’s completely normal, as the Fury starts walking and the boy makes absolutely no noise to indicate that he’s doing anything other than riding the dragon, shifting with it like he’s riding a horse, keeping his balance. 

She’s quiet in stunned shock as they walk, processing the events of the past ten minutes in a sort of numb haze. Near-death experience ( _ twice),  _ meeting the dragon-boy a second time, - and apparently being saved by him, because that couldn’t have been anything other than the boy telling the Fury to stand down - being gagged and held in a Night Fury’s jaws, without being hurt in any way. 

And now walking through the forest, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to be swaying gently from the dragon’s teeth. 

_ And,  _ soon to be fearing for her search party’s lives. 

She hears the stick snap from off to her right, and both boy and Fury freeze in place. Astrid stills, holding her breath and desperately hoping that one of her villagers doesn’t try to come after the dragon, or for  _ her.  _ She’s not worth the certain death that would come from that, and their status isn’t worth it either. 

Warm air fans across her neck as the Night Fury starts growling, a low rumble, and she dips slightly towards the ground as the dragon crouches, tense. 

_ Go away, go away, run back to Berk and say you didn’t see anything,  _ she prays fervently, almost muttering under her breath if it weren’t for the hot, breathy reminder of her current predicament behind her,  _ literally  _ breathing down her neck. 

She screams from behind her gag as the dragon starts running and she starts swaying wildly, but the Fury and the boy don’t object to her clinging for dear life to the dragon’s nose, twisting and curling her fingers against black scales, hiding her face against them and shutting her eyes. It seems like forever, though it’s probably only a few minutes, before the dragon starts slowing down, coming to a full stop and seemingly not planning on moving again, and it’s only then that she uncurls. 

She yelps as the dragon drops her abruptly, landing on her side, and the boy slides off of the creature before walking over to her. Her eyes flick down to where her axe swings from his hand, fingers curled around the handle the same way a human would. Which - it’s not like she didn’t assume he was human, but the fact that he apparently rides a dragon,  _ speaks  _ their  _ language,  _ and moves with more fluid grace than any other human she’s known doesn’t help his case. 

He crouches in front of her, axe set down just away from her reach, and puts two fingers to her lips. She meets emerald green from under the hood, a silent question in them - which, that’s another thing; he never talks except for that dragon language, and she knows he understands her just by the light of recognition in his eyes whenever she speaks. 

Astrid gives a small nod, because she’s helpless to do anything other than play along, and he nods back and begins to untie the gag. It slips loose within seconds and he pulls it away, folding it and pushing it into a pocket in his complex, dark dragon-scale armor. She doesn’t scream, because he points behind her and she turns to see the treeline’s end, revealing the last stretch of field before Berk’s farms and houses start, and her eyebrows raise. 

He brought her home. Even though she called a hunt for him, with villagers from this same place, he still brought her back here and put himself and his dragon at risk. 

She wonders why he doesn’t just fly off the island with his dragon. They’re both capable of it, and as far as she knows the boy has no connection to Berk as a reason to stay on its island. Then again, she knows very little about the world of dragons save for their strengths, their weaknesses, and her life’s purpose of  _ kill or be killed.  _

She turns around to the boy, who has- gods, he has a  _ smirk  _ on his face, and her eyebrows raise higher as he dips into a small bow, waist bending just slightly, green eyes lit with humor and amusement as he looks up from beneath the hood, before straightening and jumping back up on his dragon in that strange, sinuously graceful way of his. Astrid takes special care not to notice the near-reflection of the boy’s amusement in the  _ dragon’s  _ eyes. That’s going too far for one day. 

She finds the corner of her own lips tilting up slightly at the boy’s quiet snark, and her next sentence comes out impulsively, even as Spitelout yells her name in the very near distance. 

“Come to Berk with me,” she blurts out, still half-smiling, but that smile quickly fades as the boy’s amusement vanishes and is replaced by hostile fire. He hisses, the Fury growls, and Astrid’s brow furrows as she watches them both turn tail and vanish into the forest. 

Spitelout emerges from the trees then, forcing her to wipe the confusion off her face and push the thoughts of the boy from her mind. 

“Astrid? What are ye doin’ here?” Spitelout asks, a frown forming on his face as he swings his axe up to his shoulder. 

She realizes, very suddenly, the predicament that the boy and his dragon have put her in, and feels her stomach drop. 

She’s back near Berk, unharmed, with no credit whatsoever as to there actually being a Night Fury in the forest she’d almost put people in danger to find. There’s no way she can still claim that the dragon is in the forest, not when not one of her search party has found a single trace of the dragon, and her position close to Berk, without having any sign of injury or pursuit, makes her look as if she was lying.

Astrid remembers the smirk on the boy’s face, the small bow and the way his eyes had flicked briefly up to the houses of Berk before back down to her. She gets the sinking feeling that he knew exactly what he was doing. He effectively got rid of anyone who would continue hunting him and his dragon, except for her, but he’s shown that the two of them easily outmatch her. She can’t convince anyone, now, so she won’t be able to bring anyone with her either.

The boy left her alone with the knowledge of him and his Night Fury, and she knows he’s not going to do something so reckless as reveal himself to any other villager in Berk. He saved himself and his dragon, without hurting her, all in one smooth move.

She sighs. “I’m not sure there is a Night Fury,” she says, and the words taste like ash in her mouth. She can feel her reputation dropping, can practically hear the rumors that would go around town. She’ll be accused of lying, and her hard-earned reputation as a warrior before a woman will dwindle slowly, especially with the hanging threat of her marriage to Snotlout. 

Damn that boy and his gods-forsaken dragon. 

Spitelout’s frown grows deeper. “Whad’ya mean? You said ye were chased by it,” he says, and then his eyes darken. “Were ye lyin’, Astrid?”

Another long sigh. She closes her eyes. “Yes. I- I wasn’t chased by it. I thought I saw something, but it’s- it’s nothing, I guess.” She looks up at him as Spitelout comes to sit beside her. “I just- I didn’t want to miss it, so I made a big deal, and I could  _ feel  _ it behind me, I swear it was chasing me!”

Spitelout puts a hand on her shoulder and she resists the urge to flinch. This is the father of the man she’s going to marry- no, the man she’s being  _ sold off to.  _ And she’s talking with him as if he’s a normal person, as if he didn’t sign her life away without a care for what she thought about it. “I understand. Ye didn’t want to let it escape. And ye don’t want to marry my son,” he says, voice kind, and Astrid’s eyes widen. She glances up at him, but Spitelout continues on, adding to the horror building in her. “But the attention of hunting a Night Fury won’t distract us from your future, Astrid. You and my son will get married, and you’ll be accepted into my family. I gave the blessing myself.” He pauses, and Astrid feels unwanted tears spring to her eyes. “Being married to my son doesn’t make you any less of a warrior, Astrid.”

He stands up then, and Astrid can’t do anything but watch as he grins. “I’ll leave ye alone, then. Don’t worry about the search party, I’ll bring ‘em back for ye.”

She nods without thinking, and Spitelout walks away. Astrid glares at her axe, studiously fighting back tears, and starts adding to her list of non-lethal, extremely painful places to stab, or kick, or punch, or just  _ hit Snotlout.  _ Anywhere, really. She’s not picky. Hel, maybe she can do the same to Spitelout, too. 

It’s hours before she moves, picking up her axe and walking back to the village that’s now lit by the setting sun. Astrid doesn’t notice the lithe shape crouched on a tree branch, eyes like bright spring grass, watching her leave. 


	3. Chapter 3

A week passes before Astrid has the time to escape to the forest again. At that point, she can’t stop thinking about the dragon-boy and his Night Fury, despite the fact that the boy’s little trick earned her doubtful glances from pretty much everyone in the village. 

That’s, actually, what’s making her think about him. 

He’s obviously smart, if he knows how human civilizations work, and he’s more human than he looks to be. Sure, he moves like a dragon, and talks like one, but Astrid knows she can’t mistake the intelligence in his eyes, the light of recognition whenever she speaks, or whenever she talks about Berk. Even when he looked up at Berk, when he showed her, she could see that he  _ knew  _ what he was showing her. More than the fact that it was just a place where Vikings had settled. 

That makes his trick entirely his fault, with no doubt as to whether he knew what he was doing, but she’s forgiven him for that. Between someone else’s reputation and her life, she’d choose her life too. 

Astrid also can’t deny that he’s physically attractive. She’s never been even slightly attracted to any man in the village -  _ especially  _ not Snotlout - but this boy is smart, and doesn’t look too bad. He’s not the swing-first, ask-questions-later type, like most of the Vikings in her village. He actually thinks about what he’s going to do, which, in a village of Vikings who all do the exact opposite, is a quality she’s not going to ever take for granted. 

And as for his dragon… Astrid is still going to kill it. She may care about the boy, because he’s human and killing someone who could be such an asset to the village is just wasteful, but the dragon is useless. It would most likely kill her village before ever listening to it, and at least she knows the boy won’t do that. 

He, at least, would know he’s outnumbered and outmatched.

She slips into the cove, down the rocks, landing nearly silently on the soft grass. It’s empty, the waterfall the only noise in the place, and Astrid desperately hopes the boy and his dragon haven’t fled after the hunt. The hunt  _ she  _ called up. 

Her new plan, of getting close to the boy before killing his dragon and bringing him back to Berk, would end before it ever began if that happened. 

She takes hesitant steps forward. Her axe is back by the entrance to the cove, because she has a feeling that trust is very much not earned by bringing a weapon to a conversation, and she can feel its loss keenly as she walks into what is very literally the dragon’s den. 

She turns slowly, the sun casting a shadow of the massive rocks by her shoulder, and the shadow’s odd shape on the largest one is what causes her to glance quickly up at the rock - and then she freezes, a scream caught in her throat. 

The Night Fury is perched on the rock, crouched and walking slowly forward, over the edge of it. It stops with one paw halfway down the rock, and it’s then that Astrid notices the boy sat on the back of it.

He’s bent over, his front pressed nearly flat against the dragon’s back, the hood covering both his hair and most of his face, and both pairs of green eyes are curious as they watch her, frozen in place on the ground. Astrid closes her jaw with a click, staring up at the pair who aren’t frozen like she is, but eerily  _ still.  _ They’re only watching her, almost without blinking, definitely without moving otherwise, but it still takes Astrid much longer than she’d admit to straighten and steel herself. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she says, and her voice only shakes a little bit. Small victories. 

The pair don’t move, and Astrid sighs. She experimentally steps back, raising her hands as if in surrender. “I promise,” she says, and by that time the dragon has started slinking down the rock, moving with sinuous, curving grace, both pairs of eyes locked on her the entire time. Astrid can barely get the words out, with the nearing threat of the Night Fury and the boy with the flaming sword, pinned under their gazes. 

The dragon stops just below the rock, standing with its side facing her and its head turned to watch her, crouched defensively. The boy slides off the Fury’s back, and Astrid notices the leather cords crossing the dragon’s back and stomach, with a neat pad of leather in the middle, supposedly to sit on. The rest of the saddle is a metal and leather contraption, painted black and nearly blending in with the scales, running up the dragon’s side and along its tail, connecting to-

She doesn’t see what it connects to, because the boy steps in front of her and the Night Fury lays down, curling up with its head on its paws, still watching her. Her eyes flick to the boy’s, who is studying her face, before his gaze skims down her body. Not suggestively, there’s nothing in his eyes that even remotely suggests that, but she sees his glance flick to spots where weapons could be hidden, studying her armor and seeing if there’s anything that could hurt him or his dragon, probably looking for weaknesses too. 

It’s another sign of his intelligence, especially as his eyes light on the exact spot where many people have gotten underneath her armor in the past, and Astrid finds herself growing more curious by the second. 

Finally, the boy steps back, meeting her eyes, and suddenly Astrid has no idea what to do. 

“Let’s- sit,” she says stiltedly, mind racing, and she looks around for a nearby rock. She doesn’t think of the rocks the Fury is laying by, because those are out of the question now. The boy couldn’t make her sit there if he tried. 

And he does try. 

The boy nods, turning and walking over to his dragon. Astrid watches, eyes widening as the Fury lets out a rumbling purr as the boy sits on the grass, leaning back against the dragon’s shoulder, one of the Fury’s wings lifting and folding over the boy. He turns and tilts his head back, and Astrid watches the corner of his lips quirk up as he rubs a hand on the Fury’s black scales, the dragon's eyes closing and head tilting back into the touch.

It lasts less than a minute, and she feels her breath catch as suddenly both pairs of green eyes are fixed on her again. The dragon, curious, and the boy, almost smirking as he watches her conflict. 

He knows she won’t sit with a dragon. Bastard.

She glares at the boy, watching his amusement only rise at that, and sits a good three feet away from the dragon, who lays its head back down and closes its eyes, apparently uninterested in her. 

Then it’s silent, and Astrid finds herself filling the silence. There’s nothing else to do, really, because the boy won’t - he  _ won’t,  _ she knows he can speak Norse - talk to her, and this meeting would be for naught if she sat in awkward silence with him the entire time. 

She glances over at him - he’s shredding a leaf in his hands, staring down and not looking at her. 

Until he is, as if he sensed her gaze, head snapping up and gaze sharp and curious as she watches him, his fingers stilling on the leaf. 

Astrid is the first to look away, clearing her throat, and then she starts talking just as the leaf  _ rips  _ again. “You know, you’re really smart,” she says, because it’s the first thing that comes to mind and she instantly wishes she thought this out better. The boy lets out something like a laugh, quiet and amused, and she feels her face heat. 

She looks up at him, indignant, meeting his amusement, and waves her hand vaguely in the air. “I mean, I’m assuming you built that thing-“ she gestures at the saddle, “because I’ve never seen it in any market, and you- you brought down a Night Fury, for Thor’s sake-“

She cuts off, eyes widening as the Fury raises its head, eyes opening and a low growl rumbling in his throat. The same flinty glare is in the boy’s green eyes as well, in obvious threat, and she mentally repeats what she said. 

_ You brought down a- _

_ Oh.  _

She glances between the two, the way the tip of the Fury’s wing rests on the boy’s lap from where it’s folded, and the way its tail is curled almost around the boy, and revises her sentence. “You-  _ tamed _ a Night Fury,” -and the growl dies down, the boy’s flinty gaze turning curious again, and she lets out a quiet breath- “and you’ve been on Berk without us knowing for… how long? I don’t even know, but you’re smart! You obviously know how to survive, especially with that little trick you pulled on me-“

The boy glances down, something that looks like  _ regret  _ in the way he curls slightly in on himself, and Astrid rethinks the smirk he’d given her when he dropped her by Berk, the small bow. He hasn’t been rough towards her in any way, hasn’t looked as if he meant any malice or ill will, and he seems so genuine, she can’t think he’s acting. No one is that good of an actor, as even the Night Fury lets out a quiet mournful sound and nudges the boy with its nose, prompting the boy to raise his head and give a small smile at the dragon. 

Astrid continues anyway, because as much as she hated the trick, she can’t deny that it was effective, “ _ especially  _ with that little trick you pulled on me,” she repeats, watching his gaze flick up to hers, and she meets it evenly. “Actually thinking things through isn’t a quality you get in most Vikings,” -she gets a quiet huff of laughter at that, from the boy, as he glances down back at the shredded leaf- “and it’s a bit refreshing.”

She hesitates for only a second, and then barrels on, not thinking of what she’s saying before it comes out. She’s been bottling this up for months, and this boy is as good a target as any to vent her frustrations out on. It’s not like he’ll  _ talk _ to anyone about it. 

“Refreshing from who I’m being married off to, at least,” she says, tone turned bitter, and she glares down at her lap. She feels the boy’s gaze turn to her, and she doesn’t look at him but she can imagine the intelligent light in his eyes, understanding exactly what she’s saying. “I’m being married off to  _ Snotlout,  _ of all people. Sold like a piece of property - which is, actually, exactly what they see me as.” She makes a valiant effort to incinerate the grass with her eyes. “He doesn’t  _ think!”  _ she growls. “He’s always saying something stupid, getting himself into trouble. He doesn’t plan  _ anything _ , he thinks that he’s the greatest thing to ever happen to  _ anyone!” _

She gives another short growl, tearing up a piece of the grass with her hands, and then sighs. “I don’t even know your name,” she says, quieter, tired. She leans back against the rock, thudding her head on the stone. “I’m telling you all my troubles and you don’t even know  _ my  _ name.”

She stops talking, and the boy is, as always, silent. She sighs again, a sudden rush of frustration and anger coursing through her, and she stands up abruptly. “You won’t even talk back to me,” she says bitterly. “You probably don’t even care.”

She walks forward, planning on leaving the boy behind without so much as a goodbye. He won’t say it back, so what’s the point of her saying it. She’s tired, of trying to get close to him, of having the threat of the marriage to Snotlout hanging over her head. A dragon-boy who won’t talk back to her isn’t worth her time right now. 

“Hiccup.”

The voice comes from behind her, quiet and decidedly masculine, and she stops. She turns around, meeting the boy’s now-solemn green eyes as he looks up at her. All his earlier amusement has faded, and while there isn’t any pity in his eyes, he isn’t entirely uncaring either. 

“What?” she asks. 

“My name is Hiccup,” he says, and doesn’t continue. She stares; he’s gone quiet, and she doesn’t know what to say. 

Astrid nods after a moment, all her earlier frustration suddenly vanished. “I’m Astrid.”

The corner of his lips tilt up, in the most genuine smile she’s seen him give her since she met him, and there’s an adorable sort of crookedness about the smile, however small. 

“Bye, Astrid,” he says, still with that small, slightly crooked smile of his. 

Astrid fights the smile threatening to spread across her face, and nods. “See you later, Hiccup.”

She turns, heart racing, and walks out of the cove as calmly as she can. She takes her axe from its hiding place, and prevents herself from swinging it into a tree, and settles for repeating to herself just how many times Hiccup has threatened her with that Night Fury of his, and how he screwed over her entire reputation. 

This is a job, nothing more. She’s getting close to him to betray him. 

He doesn’t matter. 


	4. Chapter 4

The next time Astrid sees the boy -  _ Hiccup _ \- it’s been three weeks, and she almost fears that he and Toothless have left Berk, that when she goes down to the cove, their cave will be empty and all she’ll have left of them is black scales and the spot where her singed hair was cut short. 

She goes to escape from Snotlout, from his incessant, terrible flirting and the ever-nearing plans for the wedding, which is only a month away now, and which she has no escape from as far as she can tell. It’s not like the exiled heir of Berk will suddenly appear and take his place as Stoick’s son and she’ll be married off to him instead. Though, she can’t imagine he’d be any better than Snotlout. 

Hiccup appears from behind a rock as she looks over the cove, his hood down for once and the sun highlighting his auburn hair, his Night Fury standing nearby and stepping lightly, as if it’s stalking something. She shrinks back against the rock she’s hiding behind, thinking that there’s some threat that she can’t see that they’re defending against. 

The Fury’s head turns towards the rock Hiccup is hiding behind, and then it pounces, leaping over the rock, and Astrid breaks out into a helpless smile as she watches them roll together, the Night Fury batting its paws at Hiccup and the boy lightly hitting it in response, laughing and grinning. She recognizes it for what it is - a play fight - and is…  _ endeared  _ by the way Hiccup grins at his dragon, groaning when the Fury drops its chin on his chest, arms falling out to his sides. 

And then her smile drops and she freezes as the Fury looks up, head raising from Hiccup’s chest, and even she can see the baring of teeth, the playful posture switching into that of a defensive one, crouched over Hiccup, eyes locked on her. Hiccup, in turn, rolls over so he leans on his elbows, scanning the cove until his eyes light on her too. He, however, leans to his side and taps lightly on the Night Fury’s black scales, decidedly more relaxed than he was last time by the simple fact that he doesn’t immediately move to a defensive position like his dragon.

She watches as the Fury backs slowly down, still glaring fiercely at her, and she makes her way hesitantly down to the cove. The Night Fury and Hiccup both walk over to the boulders they like to sit on, the Fury curling up at the base of the pile and Hiccup sitting in the curve of its body, leaning back against its scales like before, with his hood down and apparently waiting for her.

Astrid approaches slowly, stopping a few feet away. Hiccup doesn’t say anything, so she starts the conversation - it’s not as if it’s not normal, after all. She didn’t expect the boy to suddenly be a conversationalist when it took three meetings - and only one of those on  _ her  _ terms - to get him to say his name, but… she did expect a little more. 

“Hey, Hiccup,” she says, still standing. 

And then her hopes are dashed when he gives only a nod and a slight tilt of his lips, that same crooked half-smile he’d given her before. His face doesn’t light up like it did at his dragon earlier, but Astrid doesn’t want that anyway. She  _ doesn’t -  _ she has to remember that she’s getting close to him for a mission. It’s become far too easy to forget lately, to be lost in bright green eyes and messy auburn hair. 

Gods, what is  _ happening  _ to her?

She knows exactly what’s happening, and she knows exactly why she attempts to do what she does next, but that part is shoved down in favor of reasoning away her actions. The faster she gets the boy to trust her, the faster she can kill his dragon and bring him back to Berk. 

It’s not out of any sort of curiosity that she takes some hesitant steps forward, and it’s not out of any desire to touch and feel that she reaches a hand out partially towards the Night Fury and partially towards Hiccup. 

The Fury’s eyes widen and he growls, teeth bared, tail flicking to circle around Hiccup and fins flipping up in front of him, as Hiccup himself rises into a crouch with such quick grace she envies it. His green eyes are hostile now, glaring at her with one hand on the sword at his hip and a similar growl to the Night Fury’s rumbling in his throat. 

The Fury snaps at her hand, and Astrid yelps, yanking it back and jumping backwards in the same motion. Her heart rate picks up at the threat, both of them still glaring at her, and she keeps walking back, raising her hands in surrender. 

Too much, too soon. Astrid is going to have to learn how to judge these two, if she’s ever going to build enough trust to get as close as she wants to. 

For now, she takes a seat several feet away, watching with the last remnants of adrenaline making her tense as both of them calm down, Hiccup slowly sitting back down and his Night Fury lowering its tailfin, retracting its teeth and laying back down. It doesn’t move its tail from its protective circle around Hiccup, though, and the boy doesn’t seem to want it to leave anyway, putting one hand on the black fin near his leg and rubbing back and forth in small motions. 

Astrid glances down, still feeling Hiccup’s distrustful gaze in the way he leans slightly away from her, no longer relaxed like he’d been last time they met, and she tentatively attempts to start conversation again. She doesn’t think it’ll be an actual  _ conversation -  _ not after her mistake just now - but she can at least talk  _ at  _ him, if not  _ to  _ him. 

“Sorry,” she starts, quietly, and looks over at Hiccup. He’s still staring down at the grass, hand on his Fury’s tail, not looking at her. 

“That was too much too quickly. I should’ve known better,” she continues. 

No response. She sighs. “You’re really my only friend right now, you know,” she says. 

She sees him twitch, the barest of movements, and keeps going without letting him know she saw it. “Everyone is either focused on my wedding to Snotlout, or focused on thinking that I lied to them about you. Even Fishlegs is avoiding me. He doesn’t really think that I lied, but he doesn’t really trust me either.”

“Sorry,” he says, a near whisper, and her head snaps up to look at him. He’s still staring at the grass, but he’s curled slightly in on himself as if in apology, the same way he’d been last time she brought it up. 

She doesn’t say anything, and his voice is quieter when he speaks next. “For that trick.”

It takes a minute for Astrid to recover from the shock of him talking to her, and then she smiles, trying to keep the conversation going. To get close to him, she tells herself. That’s all her smile is. A war victory and nothing else. 

“There’s nothing to forgive,” she says quickly. “If I had to choose between someone else’s reputation and my life, I’d choose my life too.”

He pulls his knees up to his chest, putting his chin on them and still staring at the grass, starting to pull it up with one hand. His Night Fury brings its tail in a tighter circle around him, opening its eyes and looking back at the dragon-boy, whistling a mournful question. 

She watches as Hiccup puts his hand on the Fury’s nose, turning his head and paying attention to the dragon the way he hasn’t ever paid attention to her since she found him. The Night Fury closes its eyes, nuzzling up into the touch, and Hiccup smiles, rubbing the night-black scales. 

And his eyes flick to her, and his smile drops as he pulls in on himself again, turning away. 

The Fury lets out a soft whine, then, recognizing the source of Hiccup’s wariness, turns and glares at her, giving her a low growl. 

Astrid sighs. She can’t get anywhere near Hiccup with his dragon there, and she can’t get anywhere near the dragon with Hiccup there. She’s going to have to separate them somehow, and she shoves down the dread in her stomach that rises at that thought. The dread she isn’t supposed to have, because she’s not supposed to care about them. 

For now, she needs to keep this conversation going. This is the most he’s ever talked to her, however wary he is of her still. 

“You know, it was kinda smart,” she says, and sees the slight twitch that shows he’s listening, even as he uses his finger to draw patterns in the grass. “I know you don’t want to hurt me,” and she sees him flinch, as if saying  _ I already did _ , and she keeps going, “and you  _ didn’t _ ,” she says firmly, “but at the same time, you saved yourself and your dragon.”

Astrid ignores the rumbling threat she gets at that, the flash of teeth from the Fury at the mention of him, and focuses on Hiccup. 

And suddenly it dawns on her. 

She glances at the Fury. “What’s it’s -  _ his _ \- name, anyway? You never told me,” she asks, quietly and as neutrally as she can get. 

Hiccup tenses then, stilling entirely, but his head turns just slightly towards her. He’s interested, then, more than he was in what she was saying before. Progress, however small. 

“I want to learn more, Hiccup,” she continues. “I know you care about him. I don’t want to hurt either of you.”

Somehow, it’s not a lie anymore. The job of capturing the boy and killing his Night Fury has become more of a weight than a goal, somewhere between being dropped at Berk and walking away from Hiccup with his voice saying  _ Bye, Astrid  _ in that quiet way of his and the crooked half-smile he’d given her. 

“Toothless,” he says after a long moment, voice still that quiet near-whisper. Astrid can’t help the smile that breaks out across her face, and she turns her gaze to the Night Fury. 

“Hi, Toothless,” she says. The dragon -  _ he,  _ not  _ it,  _ she tells herself - opens  _ his  _ eyes, and for once she doesn’t get a growl. Instead, Toothless blinks and lets out a soft noise, like a  _ hello  _ of his own. 

Hiccup is looking at her, green eyes curious, but Astrid gets the feeling that she’s on trial, like she’s being judged for something. And she thinks she knows exactly what she’s being judged for. 

She doesn’t drop her smile, instead glancing at the setting sun and standing up. The way Hiccup is tensing, like he’s ready to bolt, indicates that she’s almost overstayed her welcome. 

“Well, I should be getting back,” she says, turning to look down at Hiccup as he sits with Toothless. She meets his eyes. “See you later, Hiccup,” she says quietly, the same as their last meeting. 

He only stares back, silent. She turns around, resisting the urge to sigh, though she hoped that he would respond like he did before. 

And then she hears it, barely audible. 

“Bye, Astrid.”

She smiles, and keeps walking out of the cove.

-0-0-0-

Someone’s coming. 

Toothless’s head lifts first, ear-flaps flicking up and his teeth baring. Hiccup is just behind him, glancing up and around at the walls of the cove, sitting up. Toothless’s tail lashes on the ground in front of him, and Hiccup pulls his hood up quickly and sets a hand on it, stilling it while he rises to a crouch, his other hand half-wrapped around the leather hilt of his sword.

It’s not the Viking girl, Astrid. She comes in quietly always, wary but mostly friendly, and Hiccup finds himself trusting her innately, without much thought to what humans have done to dragons in the past. All his well-taught reasons to distrust her seem to vanish when she glances at him, blue eyes alight with curiosity and friendliness and that desire to learn that makes her so interesting. Most Vikings don’t want to learn about Hiccup and Toothless. 

This is not Astrid, though, and Hiccup and Toothless don’t need to talk to recognize each other’s signals. Hiccup knows the way Toothless shifts against him that he’s crouched just a bit lower, knows exactly the way his body is curved around Hiccup, and Toothless knows from the way Hiccup tenses that he’s planning on unsheathing his sword quickly and waving it off to his right, and that he should move so he doesn’t get burned. 

The bushes crackle, and exactly that happens. Hiccup pulls his sword from its sheath and it flares to life, while Toothless sinks into a lower position, looking up at the cove walls, teeth bared and a low, threatening growl rumbling in his throat. 

Toothless turns his head slightly to the right, following his sense of smell, and Hiccup’s eyes flick down towards him. He lets out a quiet hiss, more dragon than human, and it’s  _ question.  _

Toothless’s growls change just slightly in tone, saying  _ Viking-threat,  _ and Hiccup waves his sword in front of him, glaring up at the trees. 

Shadows shift in the branches, the bushes rustle, and Toothless fires at the trees. 

There’s a loud scream, and three Vikings leap from the burning plant. Two are skinny - twins, Hiccup recognizes, a boy and a girl - and the other is broader, but short and definitely with no idea what he’s doing. 

None of them have any idea what they’re doing, as the short one yells and charges, axe held above his head, and nearly trips on his way down to the cove. 

Hiccup watches, unimpressed, and Toothless laughs quietly next to him.  _ Idiot,  _ he clicks, and Hiccup’s response is a hand on his scales, still crouched warily. They may be clumsy now, but Astrid was clumsy when she first met them as well, and now…

Hiccup doesn’t want to think about how much Astrid knows, and how easily she could destroy them. 

Toothless recognizes Hiccup’s wariness, and he keeps up his steady growl, baring his teeth at the short Viking. Violet fire warms his scales and Hiccup’s hand, his body tensing and shifting as he fires and the Viking screams at the scorching threat. 

“What was  _ that  _ for?” the short one asks in outrage, voice high and scared. Hiccup responds by slicing his flaming sword in front of him, letting out his own threatening growl, watching the Viking’s eyebrows raise in surprise. 

There’s a yell from behind him, and Hiccup turns to see the twins with their axes raised against Toothless. 

And suddenly the fight’s stakes raise to be so much higher, adrenaline shooting through Hiccup.

Hiccup’s growl gets more hostile at the threat to Toothless, and he leaps to Toothless’s saddle and off his back on the other side, meeting the twins’ axes with his flaming sword, glaring at them both. This wasn’t a fight until they threatened Toothless, and that has made them enemies in Hiccup’s eyes. 

He twists, dragging his sword down to burn and slice through the wood of the axe handles, stepping aside to watch the blades drop at his feet. The twins look at him, then at the wooden stumps, and all Hiccup has to do is growl, slicing his sword threateningly close to them, to make them turn tail and run. 

He turns to see the short Viking running as well, his helmet flaming and Toothless puffing smoke indignantly out of his nose, glaring at the retreating Viking. 

Hiccup gives a short laugh and walks up beside Toothless, putting a hand on his scales. Toothless hisses one last time at the short Viking as he clumsily climbs out of the cove, the twins following, then turns to look at Hiccup. His face spreads into a smile, smug at his victory and nearly preening. 

Hiccup doesn’t smile back. He presses his hand into Toothless’s scales, signaling  _ threat  _ and  _ not-alone,  _ and his sharp green eyes scan the trees. Toothless’s smile fades and he growls, baring his teeth and following Hiccup’s gaze around at the cove walls, body unconsciously curving protectively around Hiccup and tail flicking to complete the circle. The movement is so ingrained, Hiccup doesn’t notice that Toothless moved, and Toothless doesn’t need to think about the movement.

Hiccup’s fingers press into Toothless’s scales  _ just so _ , and Toothless moves with him, tail flicking to the side to let Hiccup out of the circle to start into a run, so close to Toothless that the slightest change in direction could mean either of them crash into the other. 

But they don’t crash, because when Toothless turns, Hiccup steps away, and when Hiccup turns, Toothless shifts and curves around him. They make it up the cove walls, into the forest, and then pause, both stepping lighter and stalking the Viking that Hiccup sensed. 

Toothless hisses at the plants, green eyes darting around everywhere,  _ suspicion  _ and  _ threat  _ written in every line of his body. 

One of the bushes rustles and Hiccup hisses, gaze locking on the plant, dropping to a crouch with one hand balanced on the ground and the other holding his flaming sword. 

Toothless prowls up behind him, his low growl rumbling by Hiccup’s ear, and Hiccup doesn’t flinch as Toothless fires, violet blast warming his hood, but skimming past him and instead lighting the bush on fire. 

There’s a high-pitched scream, and Hiccup feels Toothless’s head raise from near his shoulder, tilting and chirping  _ confusion  _ as another taller, heavier Viking runs out from the bush, screaming. He throws something up while he runs, and Hiccup leaps forward in a movement more dragon than human, picking up the small brown bundle. 

Toothless growls from right beside him,  _ worry  _ coloring the tone of it, and Hiccup smiles, putting a hand on Toothless’s nose in  _ reassurance.  _

Toothless whines, and Hiccup turns the book over, reading the title engraved in the leather. 

_ Book of Dragons (Edition II) _

Hiccup pulls open the latch and cover, flipping through the pages. It’s the same book as he remembers vaguely from eleven years ago, but there’s slightly messy annotations in the margins and neat notes written on the extra pages.  _ Fishlegs _ is signed at the beginning of the book, and Hiccup glances up at where the Viking had sprinted off into the forest. 

They’re too close, they’re all too close. Hiccup knows he shouldn’t have let Astrid get so close - now her and Fishlegs, and he assumes that was Snotlout and the twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut that attacked him, know far too much about him. The simple knowledge  _ of  _ him and Toothless is too much for Hiccup’s liking, and Astrid…

Astrid knows far more about them than she realizes, and it’s only a matter of time before she does realize it and comes after them. Trusting her doesn’t matter if it’s Toothless’s life on the line - he will talk to her sometimes, and he’ll let her sit next to them, but he  _ will not  _ let her threaten Toothless. That is something that even she can’t stop him from preventing. 

Hiccup’s brow furrows and he gives a soft growl, flipping the book closed and walking back to the cove. Toothless follows behind him, whimpering  _ worry  _ and  _ question  _ and  _ comfort.  _

Hiccup doesn’t have an answer for him. 


	5. Chapter 5

When Astrid walks back to the cove, she knows something’s wrong. 

For one, there’s two spots where the bushes are burned and ash covers the area in a wide circle - Astrid thinks she sees something like shreds of paper scattered among the grass - and for two, when she comes up on the cove, she sees Toothless bent over the lake, drinking water, but his tail is lashing behind him and he keeps glancing up, as if watching for a threat. 

And this time, Astrid knows it’s not a play-fight. 

She moves forward, sliding down the cove rocks, and watches Toothless lift his head, green eyes locking on her. She gives a small, reassuring smile - and Toothless bares his teeth, growling, and then he turns his head towards the waterfall and lets out a roar. 

She tenses, glancing towards the waterfall. Of all the things she’d expected to happen when she came back, this was not it - she thought she was making progress. 

Apparently not, she thinks, as Toothless’s low growl rumbles steadily through the space, and his hostile glare is set on her. 

Auburn hair appears from behind the waterfall, followed by Hiccup, who is decidedly less friendly than before, as he stalks towards her in that lethally graceful half-crouch with his hood up, one hand on his sword hilt and Toothless’s hostile glare reflected in Hiccup’s own glare. 

She raises her hands in surrender, backing away slowly, glancing between Hiccup, Toothless, and Hiccup’s hand on his sword. She can feel her heart rate pick up, fear shooting through her and nearly paralyzing her in the way only the boy and his dragon can do to her. 

“Hiccup,” she says, voice slightly panicked, and she gets a hiss in return, “what are you doing?”

“You  _ lied _ ,” he says, gritting it out as if it’s painful to say. Astrid winces at the tone - all her progress, gone because of whatever happened between last time and now that makes him think that she lied. She almost wants to give up, because she’s never met anyone as closed off as Hiccup and getting close to him is a lot harder than she thought it would be. 

Some small part of her wants to get close anyway, because - and now she can’t help but admit it - she does care about the two of them. Whatever imagined slight Hiccup thinks she’s done against him, Astrid knows she would never intentionally hurt them. She’s long since abandoned her original mission, and it’s just now that she’s realizing it. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Astrid says, and winces internally at the wording that’s sure not to go even slightly towards convincing him of her innocence. “I didn’t lie, Hiccup,” -he hisses again at his name, and she makes a mental note to try not to use it until she’s proved innocent and he doesn’t look like he wants to kill her- “I don’t know what happened that caused this, but I never lied to you or T- ...or your Night Fury,” she corrects when Toothless’s growl turns into a harsh snap of teeth. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

It’s silent for a long moment, one in which Astrid thinks her heart is going to pound out of her chest, until suddenly Toothless’s gaze shifts up to the trees above her and she screams, ducking as a blast of violet fire shoots very suddenly above her head. 

She opens her eyes, glaring at them. “What was  _ that  _ for-“

There’s a high-pitched scream, and Astrid turns around to see-

“Snotlout?!” she asks loudly, as the Viking stumbles down the cove rocks, eyes wide and panicked. “What are you  _ doing  _ here?” She glances back at Hiccup and Toothless, who are glaring at both her and Snotlout. “You could’ve gotten yourself killed!”

Snotlout stops a few feet away from her and gestures at the dragon and boy. “And you couldn’t have?! You were  _ talking  _ to them, Astrid! Like friends! And I’m pretty sure that’s a Night Fury, who can  _ kill you _ with no effort! Like it almost did me!” 

He glares at Toothless, who only growls back, and Astrid sighs as she sees Hiccup standing in the curve of Toothless’s body and tail, sword alight with fire on one side and green eyes defiant and hostile towards both of them. 

“Snotlout,” she says, with the tone of quickly dwindling patience, though she can feel herself panicking inside. She knows she can’t do anything to stop the dragon and the boy if they decide to attack Snotlout, because their trust of her is as fragile right now as their trust of Snotlout, and the near helplessness is not a feeling she likes. “They are not going to hurt you as long as you don’t hurt them. Right, guys?” she asks, turning a meaningful glance on Hiccup and Toothless. 

The only response she gets from them is Toothless’s steady growl and Hiccup’s fiery glare. She sighs again, though she’s still tense with adrenaline and attempting to stop the dragon and the boy from killing one of the Vikings of Berk. She isn’t sure how long she’d be able to keep Berk from hunting down the two if they did that. 

Astrid looks at Snotlout. “You won’t hurt them either,  _ right?” _

Snotlout’s eyes widen and he gestures indignantly at them. “Are you forgetting the fact they almost tried to kill  _ me _ ?!”

“They were not trying to kill you, Snotlout!” she says, exasperated. Her patience is very quickly running out - she was not made for mediating situations. “You were the one spying on them! They live here!”

Snotlout rolls his eyes. “Oh, and you just  _ know that,  _ do you? Aren’t you supposed to be with the women of the village, learning how to be my wife? I’m pretty sure this isn’t it-“

His sentence cuts off with a scream as Astrid throws one of her daggers hidden in her clothes, hard enough to pin the shoulder of his shirt into the tree bark behind him, her patience very quickly vanishing.

Astrid grins, something cruel and mocking, and walks up to him, relishing the fear in his eyes - for the moment. But it’s a damn good moment. 

“I am  _ not  _ your wife,” she says under her breath, and she doesn’t think about the dragon and dragon-boy behind her. All she thinks about is Snotlout, pinned against the tree and staring at her with eyes wide in fear, and  _ my wife.  _ “I  _ will  _ not be your wife, I  _ am  _ not your wife, and there is  _ nothing  _ you can do,  _ Snotlout,”  _ she hisses his name, “to  _ make  _ me your wife. This is nothing more than a title. Are we clear?”

He’s silent, and Astrid smiles. She pulls out another small dagger, and examines the sharp steel edge. Her gaze flicks back to Snotlout, who’s looking between her and the blade. 

“I said, are we  _ clear?” _

Snotlout whimpers. “Yes, yeah, no wife, I get it-“

She wordlessly yanks out the dagger in his shoulder and turns away, tuning out his muttered comments as she slips the daggers back into her clothes and walks away. 

Snotlout stands up behind her, and once she’s several feet away and has calmed down slightly, she turns back around, blue eyes alight with hostile fire. She meets Snotlout’s gaze. 

“ _ You  _ are going to go back to Berk, and you’re going to say you never saw me out here. Got it?” she says, tone steely. Snotlout nods silently, and then she continues. “And you’re not going to tell anyone about these two, understand?” 

Snotlout glances at Hiccup and Toothless, who Astrid hasn’t looked at to see their reactions since she pinned Snotlout against the tree, and then he looks back at her and nods wordlessly again. 

“Verbal answer, Snotlout,” she says, almost boredly. 

“Yes, Astrid,” he replies - as if he’s gritting it out, and with a petulant tone like a child, but still an answer. 

And if Astrid discovers that he’s let slip about Hiccup and Toothless, then Snotlout may find himself losing a limb or two in the very near future. 

“Go,” she says, and glares at Snotlout’s retreating form as he turns and sprints as fast as possible out of the cove. 

It’s when he disappears into the forest that she looks over at Toothless and Hiccup, still crouched together as always, but Hiccup has put his sword away and is watching her silently. 

She sighs and turns away. “Sorry. I know you don’t trust me right now, so I’ll go,” she says, quieter and more tired than she ever lets herself be in front of anyone else at Berk. “You know that I carry weapons with me around you two, when I was supposed to be unarmed this entire time. And I led Snotlout to you too.” She runs a hand through her hair, letting out a breath and slumping down against a nearby rock. 

It’s quiet for a long moment, and Astrid almost turns around to see if the pair left. 

“You didn’t lie,” Hiccup says quietly behind her. Astrid freezes, waiting for him to continue -  _ if  _ he’ll continue. 

“No, I didn’t,” she says, after he doesn’t respond. The situation feels fragile, like glass in her hands, and she knows that this is a critical moment to rebuilding Hiccup’s trust towards her. 

It’s silent again. She turns around to see Hiccup sitting staring down at the grass, leaning against Toothless, who cracks open one eye to watch her as she watches Hiccup. 

“Hey,” she says, and the boy looks up at her. This didn’t work last time, but… all she can do is try, and their relationship is the slightest bit better than it was back then. “Come to Berk with me. Live with us. You’ll be able to visit Toothless out here, but you’ll have reliable shelter, food, water-“

Hiccup’s green eyes turn flinty, switching to a glare, and he stands up - or, as much as he ever stands up, in that same half-human, half-dragon crouch - with that uncanny grace of his. Astrid inhales sharply as Toothless growls at her, sensing Hiccup’s distress, and Hiccup himself walks towards her, gaze hard. 

“No,” he says, and it’s the calm of it that makes Astrid feel like she’s being threatened. Hiccup looks evenly at her, and for once, he speaks on his own. 

Astrid doesn’t like it. 

“I am not going to go to Berk,” he says. “I told you that, and yet you keep trying. We are acquaintances. We are not friends, we are not lovers,” and Astrid thinks she hears the slightest hint of bitterness when he says that, “and I am not a Viking.”

Toothless rumbles from next to him, pushing his head under Hiccup’s hand. Hiccup turns just slightly towards him, letting Toothless lift Hiccup’s arm so it rests on his nose, and then he glares at her again. “You know I would rather stay with Toothless than ever go near Berk, or any Viking. You know I don’t want anything to do with humans,” -Astrid definitely notices  _ that  _ wording- “and you  _ know  _ that I’m not going to join you.”

His lips twist in a mockery of a smile, cold and bitter. “You know I won’t leave Toothless so you can kill him and capture me.”

Astrid sucks in a sharp breath. “How did you-“

“You’re a Viking,” he says, and the bitterness is back in his voice. “You’re all the same.”

Astrid frowns and opens her mouth, but Hiccup continues on, interrupting her before she even begins. This is the longest she’s ever heard him talk, and she hates it. She hates it  _ so much,  _ because he’s right. That was her plan, this was all her fault because she kept coming back, the hunt was her fault, everything. If she’d never told the village, if she’d never come back to them the third time, none of this would’ve happened. 

“I am not going back to Berk,” he repeats, and his voice gets harsher - but not at her, oddly. “You can’t make me go back to Berk. You know this, Toothless knows it, I know it. So  _ stop trying.” _

He glares at her for a few more seconds, and then turns away. Astrid watches him, struck silent by the vehemence in his reaction - vehement enough to actually  _ talk  _ to her about it. 

She doesn’t say anything, or do anything, as he leaves on Toothless’s back. 

Later on, she’ll come to regret that more than she’s regretted anything of these encounters with him. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very long chapter - now everything's gonna start happening >:D

Snotlout doesn’t act up any more for another week - probably due to Astrid’s death glares and too-sweet smiles at him whenever he gets close to her - so she sneaks back to the cove despite herself. 

There’s a slim chance of Hiccup actually being there, after what she did, and she knows it, but she goes anyway. She can’t help it; she’s drawn to him like she’s never been drawn to anyone else before, and she wants to talk to him and gain his trust simply because she still cares for him and likes him as a person. The worst that could happen is that she spends the day alone. 

And one of her only friends is gone, but she’ll deal with that. She’ll have to. 

Astrid makes it into the cove and doesn’t have time to despair at the fact that neither of them are there before Toothless leaps out of the waterfall cave, not at all in a friendly way. 

She instinctively puts her hands out to try to placate him, bending her knees and walking slowly backwards as he stalks forward, teeth bared, but not growling at her. 

“Hey Toothless,” she says, and her voice only shakes a little despite her racing heartbeat and adrenaline shooting through her, “where’s Hiccup?”

Toothless roars at that, leaping forward, and there isn’t any time for Astrid to defend herself before she finds herself pinned under the Night Fury’s claw, his face locked in a snarl above her and green eyes burning with hostility. 

She screams, naturally, because it doesn’t matter how well she may know the dragon if she’s having a near-death experience with it, and her breaths come short as she turns her head, looking away and closing her eyes, waiting for the inevitable blast of fire. 

It never comes. Astrid turns back slowly, opening her eyes, and sees Toothless’s snarl disappear. Instead, he almost looks  _ scared,  _ like he pinned her down out of desperation and fear rather than any actual hostility towards her personally. 

And then she gets her answer - there’s no Hiccup. There hasn’t been this entire time, and she knows that if Toothless threatens her, Hiccup is most likely right behind him - to either threaten her too, or save her. 

She frowns. “Toothless,” she says, quieter, and the dragon’s growl is half-hearted, “where’s Hiccup?”

Toothless huffs, stepping off of her and running away to the pile of boulders, and when Astrid sits up, he’s watching her, body curving in that sideways way of his that usually means Hiccup is in that curve and they’re both on the defensive. It’s wrong, somehow, to not see the boy there with his flaming sword, and Astrid gets the feeling that something  _ is  _ very wrong. 

Toothless whines, diverting his attention from her to sniff at the grass, pawing at it and eventually scorching it with a low burn of fire before laying down on it, letting out a mournful warble. He looks back at her, then at the inside of the circle of his body, where Hiccup should be. 

Astrid frowns, her stomach dropping and dread suddenly making her feel cold. “He’s gone, isn’t he? He’s in trouble.”

Toothless gives a whimper, and Astrid feels her stomach drop further. Her next question comes out with no small amount of trepidation. “Where did he go?”

The Night Fury looks up at the sky, giving a mournful warble, and then looks back at Astrid. He turns to look back at his tail and growls, baring his teeth and flipping it against the ground in what looks a lot like frustration. 

Astrid’s dread only rises. She glances at Toothless’s tail, following the black-painted metal and leather up from one tail fin to the saddle, studying the stirrups, and her eyes widen as she realizes. 

“You can’t fly without Hiccup,” she breathes. Now she sees the slightly lighter shade of black on one tail fin, the strokes of paint rather than the swirling markings of the rest of Toothless’s body, and she knows she’s going to have to do something unforgivable to save Hiccup. 

Unforgivable to them because they won’t let her near six feet of them, and unforgivable to her because she’s a Viking of Berk. 

She kills dragons, not ride them. 

And yet, she thinks of Hiccup, wherever he is, alone and vulnerable. Sure, he has his flaming sword, and plenty of skill to use it, but her image of him has always been Hiccup-and-Toothless. Dragon-and-boy. There’s no Hiccup without Toothless, and no Toothless without Hiccup. It’s become more unthinkable than riding a dragon, and so that’s only part of what makes her do what she does next. 

“Toothless,” she says slowly, taking a step forward, and forces her way through her fear when his head snaps towards her and his pupils narrow, a low, threatening growl rumbling in his chest as his teeth bare. 

She holds a hand out, advancing very slowly. “You want to save Hiccup, right?” she asks, and wills her voice not to shake. 

The fact that Toothless gives no further response tells her the answer, and she nods, mustering up a small, reassuring, only slightly hysterical smile. 

“We need to work together to save him,” she continues. Astrid thinks this might be the most dangerous thing she’s ever done, even after running towards Toothless on that first day and getting nearly burned to death because of it. She knows she should be shaking with the adrenaline, terrified out of her mind, but all she can feel is a quiet, certain calm, as Toothless glances between her hand and her face and his growl slowly subsides into curiosity - still tinged with hostility and threat, though. 

“I want to save Hiccup,” she says, and Toothless tilts his head. “I can’t do it alone. You can’t do it alone.”

She’s a foot away now, and she can feel the panic beating at the edges of her calm, but she forces past it even as Toothless growls again, instead standing still and keeping her hand out. 

“Let’s go save Hiccup,” she says, softly, meeting Toothless’s eyes as his growl fades again and he glances between her hand and her face. 

Something tells her to turn her face away, so she does. She closes her eyes, and turns away, and hopes that she doesn’t lose a limb. 

Part of her feels insane for doing this, and another part feels as if it’s discovering freedom like she’s never had it before, and yet another part is panicking wildly. That part is thoroughly smothered, and smooths out into even calm, with a little bit of joy, as she feels Toothless’s black scales nudge against her palm. 

She looks back at the dragon, whose eyes are closed as he pushes into her hand, and when they open, he watches her for a second with open trust in his eyes before his pupils narrow and he huffs at her, turning away. 

Astrid exhales, watching Toothless in disbelief, and a breath of hysterical laughter escapes from her as she drops her hand. 

Oh, Hiccup’s going to  _ kill  _ her for this. 

But they have to save him first. 

Toothless’s eyes narrow as she walks towards him, putting a hand on his saddle, but he doesn’t do anything to stop her. She meets his gaze again, trying to make herself the least threatening she can possibly be. 

“You don’t have to trust me,” she says - and she’s realizing just now that she’s talking to a dragon like he can understand her, and feels a bit ridiculous, but she keeps going. “You just have to help me save Hiccup.”

Toothless huffs again, but he tilts his body to allow Astrid into the saddle, and she slides her feet into the leather stirrup straps. One side - the side associated with the prosthetic tailfin, she guesses - flips back and forth, and she pushes her heel back to switch it. Something  _ whooshes  _ behind her, and she doesn’t have time to look back at it before Toothless is launching from the ground, wings spread wide and beating around her. 

Astrid screams, instinctively pressing herself to the saddle and shutting her eyes, hiding her face. Toothless banks suddenly, and then- 

Gods, they’re  _ upside-down.  _ Astrid can feel herself lifting off the saddle, and she screams higher and holds on tighter, curling her fingers in the leather loops she finds underneath the slight upwards curve of the front edge of the saddle. 

“ _ Toothless-“  _ she screams, hiding her face as the Fury rights himself and then - oh Thor, he starts  _ spinning,  _ corkscrewing in the air, and her screams grow significantly more high-pitched than before, knuckles white with the grip she has on the saddle. 

It’s when Toothless dives directly down and then flips, dunking her head under the water, that she realizes he’s not doing this for the joy of saving Hiccup. He’s punishing her - and that brings with it the terrifying thought that he  _ understands  _ everything that’s happened between her and Hiccup, since that’s the only way she could’ve offended him. 

She screams out the first thing that comes to mind, the thing she hasn’t even known she wants to say, but when she does, she knows she means it. “I’m sorry,” she yells, burying her face into the leather of the saddle, “I’m sorry, just stop throwing me around, I’m sorry-“

She gasps as Toothless levels out abruptly and the flight gets so suddenly smoother that she looks up out of disbelief, and then her eyes widen and her mouth opens. 

The white clouds glow with the sunlight, tracing everything in honey-gold, and Astrid breaks out into a slow, helpless smile as Toothless smoothly curves into a dive down. She leans back against the saddle, legs tight around Toothless’s flanks, and holds one hand out, passing it through the clouds. 

She laughs, feeling a weight lift from her chest that she didn’t even know she had, spreading her arms out and closing her eyes. Her fear vanishes, replaced by the cold wind against her face and the feeling of the clouds against her skin. 

Now, she doesn’t think about Snotlout. She doesn’t think about the arranged marriage, or Spitelout, or Berk, or even Hiccup, abandoned and vulnerable as he is. None of that matters here, as she opens her eyes and grins. “This is pretty amazing,” she breathes in sheer awe, and her smile widens as she glances down at Toothless, who tilts his head to look at her. 

Astrid watches his mouth open, curving in what looks like a  _ smile,  _ with no teeth, and she laughs again, patting Toothless’s nose. He turns back to face forward, shooting a blast of violet fire into the sky in front of them and shaking his head. 

Astrid grins as the faded fire warms her skin. Gods,  _ now _ she knows why Hiccup loves Toothless so much. Having this experience? Being able to soar through the skies, feel the clouds and cold air on your face, see all the world beneath you?

Astrid decides she wouldn’t ever trade this for anything, and that’s when she sets her face into a determined, fierce smile, leaning down near Toothless’s scales. 

“Let’s go save Hiccup,” she says, tone hard and determined, and Toothless warbles in response, a slight growl sharpening the edges of it. He shakes himself out and Astrid tightens her fingers in the saddle, pressing herself down as Toothless dives. 

The sea opens up beneath them as they emerge from the cloud cover, and Astrid can’t help but grin with the exhilaration of flying as Toothless levels out just above the waves. She leans down to skim her hand above the mist Toothless’s wings spray up, laughing all the while. 

Toothless lifts smoothly up from the ocean, rising with barely a wingbeat, and Astrid watches the horizon as they fly towards it, the sun warming her skin and wind whipping in her face. She’s never felt better, but there’s still a small, loyal part of her that is a Viking before- whatever it is she’s becoming. Dragon lover, dragon rider. All of this is amazing, she’ll admit it, and she almost hates herself for not being able to abandon her heritage so quickly. 

She shoves all that out of her mind, though, as she spots several dark spots against the bright horizon and tries tugging lightly on Toothless’s saddle to pull him up. 

Toothless growls at her, apparently not trusting her fully yet despite the flight, and she leans down near his ear. “There’s a fleet of ships up ahead,” she says. “We can’t be seen by them yet, especially if they have Hiccup with them.”

There’s a pause in which Astrid can almost  _ feel  _ Toothless thinking it over, and then Toothless rises into the clouds, but he huffs with the reluctance. Astrid only hopes that he’ll allow her to help him when they decide to actually attack the ships, because if they don’t, Hiccup may not have a chance of surviving. 

They soar above the clouds, glimpsing the sea below in short flashes as they approach the ships, and she sighs. “Toothless,” she says reluctantly, and the dragon’s ear-flaps twitch, “you have to let me help you. If you don’t,” -she ignores Toothless’s huff and stubborn head-shake- “Hiccup may not have a chance of surviving.”

_ That  _ gets his attention. Astrid watches him go still again, thinking it over. After a long moment, she gets a reluctant growl, and she gives a triumphant smile. 

“See, I knew we could be friends,” she says teasingly, and Toothless flicks her cheek hard with his ear-flaps in retribution. 

She only laughs, and only for a moment, because as soon as she sees the ships directly beneath them, her smile fades and she tightens her hands in the saddle, leaning to the side to see better. 

She swallows hard, her heart rate picking up and adrenaline beginning to shoot through her. There’s nineteen years of dragon-killing under her belt, and half an hour of dragon-riding, and  _ none  _ of attacking with a dragon, and the stakes for this fight are so high that she can’t make mistakes. Hiccup’s life depends on whether she can defeat these ships. There’s no room for failure. 

It’s not a flag that she’s ever seen before, but that doesn’t matter. They have Hiccup, she knows this with certainty, and that means they’re enemies. 

She takes a breath, calms her nerves, and leans down against Toothless. “Toothless,” she says quietly, forcing her voice not to shake. “You’re going to dive, and then shoot the masts of the ships. Try to take them down with your claws too, if you can.”

Toothless warbles in response, and Astrid pushes back the tailfin, and then Toothless folds his wings and shoots downwards. Astrid presses herself against the saddle, focusing on the ships through her hair whipping in her face, and watches the people on the ships growing steadily larger turn at the high, building shriek of Toothless’s sharp dive. 

She ducks her head into her arms as Toothless fires, one mast exploding in a burst of violet fire that smokes around her, and feels him twist around the nets and arrows being fired at them. Toothless’s claws grip a mast, both of them dipping and then rising as he pulls the mast down and lets go, and Astrid feels arrows whistle past her ear as Toothless flaps his wings quickly to rise back into the cloud cover. 

Astrid uncovers her face and looks back down. Two out of the six ships are down, one on fire and one steadily sinking, and their element of surprise is gone. The ships all have cages on them, made of a greenish metal she’s never seen before, and all of them have men with nets, ballistas, bolas, and bows trained on where they think her and Toothless are. 

She tugs the saddle left, and fortunately Toothless banks with her. They’re facing the ships now, and she feels it when Toothless realizes her intentions, folding his wings and diving. 

They swerve around the first volley of arrows and nets, Toothless snapping his wings out and curving around the ships, firing at the bottom of one on the outside and watching it sink. Astrid scans the remaining three, looking for anything that might signal that Hiccup is on the ship. 

She curses when there’s nothing, and Toothless rises back into the cloud cover, circling the last three ships. 

“We’re going to land on one ship,” she says to Toothless, who growls at the suggestion. She keeps going anyway, because this is the best plan she can think of, and there isn’t much time left. “And we are going to take it. The other two will try to board, and all we have to do is fight the men on the ship as they come.”

Toothless snarls, but he agrees, because he twists and dives. Astrid presses herself down against the saddle, preparing, and swings herself off as Toothless lands on the deck, throwing both of her daggers at two of the men that try to rush her. 

She takes one of their axes, swinging it up by her shoulder and charging at some men who are sneaking up behind Toothless. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees one of the ships preparing to lower a board to cross into the ship she’s on. 

Toothless flicks several men overboard with his tail, which lashes as he faces the next few, and both he and Astrid roar and charge at them. Astrid swings her stolen axe and her fist into the faces and stomachs of the men, and Toothless fires violet blasts and whips his tail at them, biting and pouncing on them. 

The soldiers from the other ship start flooding the path, but all Toothless does is shoot the board as most of the men are on it, throwing some of them in the water and others back onto the deck of their ship and into yet more soldiers, falling like dominoes. Astrid grins and pats Toothless. “I’m going below deck to check for Hiccup,” she says. 

Toothless whines, but allows her to go, turning back to the boarding ship and giving his best snarl and baring of teeth, tail whipping in angry motions behind him. 

Astrid climbs down the ladder below deck, turning to see a simple hallway with cages lining the walls.

She walks forward, tracing her fingers along the greenish metal the cage doors are made of. The cages are all empty, and she almost turns around to go back when a dragon snaps at her fingers and she yelps in surprise, yanking them back and glaring at the dragon. 

It’s a Monstrous Nightmare, a dark violet purple and growling at her with its teeth bared as much as it can through the leather muzzle. She watches it light its skin on fire, yellow eyes hostile as it watches her, and suddenly she realizes the decision she has to make. 

Freeing the dragon is what Hiccup would do. 

Leaving it is what a Viking would do. 

Astrid hesitates, eyes flicking to the metal chains hanging above her head that pull open the doors. There’s a chance that this dragon will kill her if she lets it free. 

And there’s a chance that it won’t. 

She sighs, feeling her loyalty towards Berk shatter a little further and her loyalty to Hiccup build that little bit more, and jumps up to yank the chain, swinging the cage door open and letting the Nightmare out. She doesn’t dare touch the muzzle, only ducks and hides her head against the wall as the dragon charges out - thankfully, not on fire anymore. 

It’s quiet, and Astrid almost turns to look at the Nightmare, but she freezes when she feels hot breath whuff past her hair, blowing it so it drifts upwards. She gasps quietly, fear shooting through her and making her heart pound as the Nightmare sniffs her. 

It seems like forever until the dragon pulls away, and she peeks out of the cover of her arms to see it watching her, the muzzle on the floor a few feet away, before it huffs out a breath of smoke and turns away, running to the ladder and climbing out of the hole. 

Astrid exhales, trembling, and stares in disbelief at where the Nightmare was. She looks down at herself - no burns, no scars, nothing but the memory of hot breath against her hair and neck. 

The Nightmare let her go, all because she decided not to hurt it. 

The screams from outside break into her moment, and Astrid shakes herself out of it, running up to the above deck and shoving all thoughts of the Nightmare out of her mind. 

Toothless is shaking a soldier in his jaws, snarling and then tossing him overboard - whether he’s dead or alive, Astrid can’t tell, and she doesn’t much care either - before turning to her. He makes an urgent, desperate noise and then turns, leaping over to the other, notably empty ship, and disappearing below deck. 

Astrid follows, finding Toothless halfway buried inside a cage, nosing at something in the corner and whimpering. He pulls away, and Astrid gasps in horror as she sees what he was nosing at. 

It’s Hiccup, unconscious and covered in blood and dirt, a shackle around his ankle connected by a chain to the wall. He looks  _ terrible,  _ with blue-purple bruises on his face, cuts on his face and bloody bruises and blisters on his hands, and Astrid tries not to think about what looks like a  _ brand  _ disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt. 

She forces her hands not to tremble as she pulls a pin out of her braid, pushing it into the ankle cuff’s lock and twisting it until it clicks. She forces the tears not to fall as she pushes the cuff away, but she can’t force herself not to care as she pulls Hiccup towards her, cradling his head in her arms and wiping off some of the dirt on his face. 

He doesn’t stir, and she shoves down the rage rising in her, standing with a dangerous calm, holding Hiccup with one hand beneath his head and the other under his bent knees. 

She climbs onto Toothless’s back, and neither of them need to say anything for Toothless to start running towards the hatch to the above deck and shoot up. Astrid cradles Hiccup to her chest and holds onto the saddle, face set in a hard, cold rage. 

They fly up and out, Toothless firing two precise blasts at the ship beneath them and the third, last ship, and a cruel smile twists Astrid’s face as she watches them start sinking. 

It’s only when Toothless yelps and drops several feet that her rage is broken by concern and she frowns. She looks back, finding the arrow protruding from his tail, and further back she sees the third ship, which is quickly sinking but has Hunters on it aiming bows at them. She screams as Toothless shrieks in pain and plummets several feet again, flying unsteadily back and forth. 

Her arm tightens around Hiccup and she puts a hand on Toothless’s head. “Come on!” she yells, her eyes on the slowly-nearing shape of Berk in the distance. They just have to make it there, they just have to make it there…

Toothless roars as a second arrow hits him and he’s flying so low he’s skimming the water now, rising and dropping every few feet, the drop getting lower and the rise getting shorter every time. Astrid holds Hiccup with one arm and tugs on Toothless’s saddle with her other hand, looking worriedly down at the ocean, which is far too close for her liking. 

Toothless shrieks and Astrid rubs his head again. “Toothless, we’re almost there!” she yells above his next shriek. She feels the mist of a wave spray her arm and she cringes away, pulling Hiccup closer to her. 

Berk is right on them now, and Toothless whines and roars as he slowly struggles to rise. He gets above the trees - and then he plummets. Astrid screams and curls herself around Hiccup, feeling the wind whistle past her and the trees get very close very fast. 

She yelps and screams as she tumbles through the trees, curling tighter around Hiccup and pressing them both down against Toothless, her legs squeezing in a death grip on the Fury’s sides. 

When they land, Astrid skids, letting go of Hiccup as she hits with a thud and rolls several feet away. Toothless lets out a pained noise from off to her right where he lays on his side, breathing heavily. 

Hiccup’s still unconscious from where he lays on the ground, with several more cuts and more dirt on him than before, and Astrid runs over to him, ignoring her own pains and building headache. 

Toothless whimpers. Astrid looks around - and then she realizes they landed in the cove. 

She goes over to Toothless, lifting his head and pulling hard backwards. “Come on,” she says. “We have to get you to the waterfall cave, you’re vulnerable out here.”

Toothless’s eyes open slowly, hazy with pain and fatigue, and she pulls again. “Toothless, you have to help me,” she says - and he pushes himself up. 

It’s a long several minutes for Astrid to half-drag Toothless into the waterfall cave, and when she gets there, she lets him curl up in the dark corner of it and watches him pass out nearly instantly. She takes that opportunity to pull out the two arrows, and turns to the boxes stacked along the wall of the cave. 

She doesn’t  _ want  _ to go through Hiccup’s things, especially after Toothless trusted her to save him, but she doesn’t have a choice. Toothless needs medical attention. 

She picks the box closest to her, pulling open the top, and starts her search, shoving aside the guilt. 

The first three boxes have nothing - only food, bottles of water, and clothes. She supposes they can work for bandages if it comes to it, but she sets aside the third box and starts on the fourth. 

The fourth has the crest of Berk on it - Astrid knows this most likely isn’t it. She shakes the box lightly, hearing something metal rattle inside, and her curiosity piques. She thinks back to Toothless’s tail, and Hiccup’s flaming sword… he had to have gotten all that from somewhere in order to be able to make it. Maybe this will tell her where it all came from. 

She pushes aside the thought that he stole from Berk to make them, though it’s more logical the more she thinks about it. Which she  _ doesn’t.  _

She lifts the top off and looks inside-

And her eyes widen as she sees Fishlegs’ copy of the Book of Dragons in there with three other leather-bound journals, a small wooden cup with charcoal sticks in it, and metal gears and parts piled in the last corner of the box. There’s books too, stacked in one corner, most of them battered and worn, but not ruined. They’re used often, but well taken care of in the meantime. 

She makes a mental note to return to that box, and turns to the fifth and last one. In there, she finds two saddlebags and some other smaller bags. The saddlebags are empty, and most of the smaller bags as well, but she grins triumphantly as she finds medical supplies in one of the smaller bags anyway - and a veritable selection, too. Hiccup was prepared, and must have been gathering these things for years. Astrid doesn’t want to think about whether he had to learn the hard way what he needed to supply himself with. 

She turns to Toothless, pulling out the bandages, and uses the bottle of alcohol to pour it on his arrow wounds. Astrid has no idea whether dragon healing works the same as human, but she cleans the wounds with the alcohol anyway, wiping them down with one of the cloths in the bag, and then using the lotion she finds in a small tin labeled ‘WOUND CARE’ in neat Norse. Finally, she wraps the bandages and ties them off, testing them with two fingers before sitting back. 

Then she turns to the fourth box. 

The first thing she pulls out is Fishlegs’ Book of Dragons, flipping it open to a random page. 

_ Skrill,  _ it says, in the Norse of the old Vikings that had copied it. Fishlegs’ annotations are scattered among the old writing, and even fresher than that is the same neat Norse script as was on the lotion tin. 

Hiccup has crossed out the deadly over-exaggerated facts on the Skrill and replaced them with actual facts, which, compared to the descriptions of attacks that she’s grown up with, seem almost weak. She reads his additions, including feeding habits, drinking habits, and - Astrid wonders when this became not surprising - things that the dragon loves. 

She flips a few pages forward, skimming the dragons and finding that nearly all the pages have additions written on them, and then she stops. 

_ Night Fury,  _ reads the top of the page, in the original old Norse. And instead of a blank space, there’s a neat drawing of a Night Fury - of  _ Toothless,  _ curled up with his head on his paws. It’s different from every other picture in the book, which depict the dragons as poised to strike, jaws open and claws out. 

Astrid thinks she likes this version better. 

Hiccup has crossed out nearly everything that the old Viking had written, and Fishlegs hadn’t made any annotations, so Astrid reads a page of solely Hiccup’s knowledge on Night Furies. 

She smiles as she reads Hiccup’s snarky comments on Toothless’s pranks on him -  _ will drop humans off cliffs and cut the rescue way too close; will dunk human underwater and/or throw human into water entirely, causing human to almost drown -  _ and the corner where that is written is singed slightly, the page blackened. Astrid laughs and keeps reading, and then she reaches the end of the page. 

_ Hide, and pray it does not find you.  _

It’s crossed out, nearly unrecognizable if she hadn’t memorized the exact place those words had been written on the page, and Astrid runs her fingers over the charcoal. She remembers disobeying these words when she first met Hiccup and Toothless, and now Toothless is asleep next to her and Hiccup is-

Hiccup needs to be brought to Gothi. Astrid knows that, and still she looks up at where the waterfall obscures her view, and sighs, reluctant. 

_ I am not going to go to Berk. _

Astrid stands up, sliding the second Book of Dragons edition into an inside pocket on her clothes, and leaves the waterfall cave. She picks Hiccup up in the same carry as before, studying his dirty and blood-smeared, unconscious face. “I’m sorry,” she breathes. 

She pushes his hair back, looks up in the direction of Berk, and starts walking. 


	7. Chapter 7

Gothi grumbles for all of three seconds when Astrid wakes her up from her early bedtime, but as soon as she sees Hiccup cradled in Astrid’s arms, her face sobers and she gestures to one of the extra beds. 

Astrid sets him down gently, and if asked she will deny to her last breath that she runs a concerned hand through his hair, but Gothi doesn’t say anything and Astrid steps back to let her examine him. 

Astrid stands there worriedly for five minutes before Gothi whirls and smacks her arm with her staff, gesturing irritatedly to a chair, and Astrid reluctantly sits down. 

Shoving down the fear and worry for Hiccup doesn’t work, so Astrid spends at least an hour watching Gothi strip Hiccup’s shirt, touching hesitant fingers over what does turn out to be a brand on his chest, rubbing in lotions and wrapping bandages, all in utter silence except for Astrid’s racing thoughts and worries. 

_ Finally,  _ Gothi turns around and Astrid stands up instantly. “Will he be okay?” she blurts out first, without thinking. 

She quails only slightly under Gothi’s reproachful look, but the elder nods and Astrid exhales in relief, feeling a weight she didn’t know she had lift off her shoulders. 

And then she turns to the real issue, the one equally as pressing as Hiccup’s survival, if not  _ part  _ of his survival. 

“Gothi,” she says hesitantly, and the healer turns from her sorting to face her. “Can you- this needs to be a secret, for his sake. Please?”

Gothi’s expression doesn’t change, and for a heart-stopping moment Astrid thinks that she’ll have single-handedly betrayed Hiccup and possibly ended his life, but then Gothi gives a slight nod and an indulgent smile. Her face turns stern just as quickly, tapping the Berk seal on a nearby parcel and glancing outside, and Astrid takes it for what it is. 

Gothi won’t hide it from Stoick if he asks, but she won’t tell beforehand either. That’s more than Astrid hoped for, anyway, and now she hopes desperately that her luck doesn’t run out, and Hiccup survives. 

-0-0-0-

Hiccup doesn’t wake for four days. At first, it’s from the sheer severity of his injuries - Astrid spends a good hour in the forest tossing her axe into trees when she learns that the men starved Hiccup for the week they had him - but Gothi puts Hiccup into his own sleep just so he can heal faster. She kicks Astrid out after the first morning, and she spends two days stalking around the village, glaring hard enough that everyone avoids her.

Fishlegs, however, doesn’t succeed. Astrid chases him down on the second day, pulling his Book of Dragons edition out of her clothes and dragging him just into the edge of the forest, swinging him so his back hits the bark of a tree and she holds the book up, expression stormy.

“What do you know about them?” she demands.

Fishlegs’ eyes widen. “About- about who? Where’d you get that? I left it in the forest!”

“And why were you in the forest near the cove, and why was the plant next to it burnt to a crisp?  _ And  _ why are there annotations that aren’t  _ yours  _ in the book? The Night Fury page is filled!”

Fishlegs whimpers, eyes darting around. Astrid glares, until his gaze meets hers and he closes his eyes, squeezing them shut as all his words come out in a rush.

“Snotlout and the twins asked me to go to the cove with them and we saw a Night Fury!” Fishlegs blurts. Astrid keeps her glare up for another long moment, then steps back, her expression smoothing over into the closest approximation to a neutral face as she has these past two days.

Fishlegs opens his eyes hesitantly, watching Astrid worriedly as he slowly turns to face her again, relaxing only slightly. “So… you’re  _ not  _ going to kill me with your axe?”

Astrid grins. “Oh, you’re not off the hook yet. Did you see anyone else?”

He hesitates, gaze darting around again, and Astrid glares again. It takes all of three seconds, in which Fishlegs meets Astrid’s glare and whimpers, for him to start talking. “There was a boy with the Night Fury. He was…  _ defending  _ it,” he says, and his eyes start to light up with the mystery of something he hasn’t learned about. “I’ve never seen anything like it, Astrid. He had a flaming sword, and moved with the dragon like-”

Astrid cuts him off. “I’ve heard enough. I’m assuming Snotlout and the twins were foolish enough to  _ attack  _ those two?”

Fishlegs nods, and then his eyes widen as he realizes what she said. “Wait, you  _ know  _ them- Astrid, what have you been doing-”

“Find Snotlout and meet me back here as soon as possible,” she interrupts, tone sharp.

“You know, I really don’t think-”

Astrid glares at him, feeling the anger simmering in her gut, and Fishlegs quails, nodding quickly. Astrid watches him for another moment, and then walks past him, annoyance in every movement of her body.

She has to find the twins.

-0-0-0-

“You went after him  _ twice?!” _

Snotlout glances down at Astrid’s axe, whose edges are embedded in the wood on either side of Snotlout’s head and the curve in the middle circling his neck, and then back at Astrid, whose glare is fiercer than it was when she was interrogating Fishlegs.

“Yeah, why is this important?” he asks, voice panicked with the threat to his neck. “They kicked my butt both times, well, they did one time and you did the second-”

Astrid shoves her axe closer to his throat, effectively cutting his sentence off with a yelp, then yanks her axe back with a glare and walks away. She faces the group - Snotlout, the twins, and Fishlegs - and glares at them all. 

“Do you know what could’ve happened if the rest of Berk found out about those two?” she asks, voice harsh. “If  _ Stoick  _ found out about those two?”

Tuffnut makes a questioning face. “Well, you told Stoick and he didn’t believe you. I’d say nothing would happen.”

Astrid whirls on him, turning the full force of her glare towards him, and he goes quiet. “If they got injured,” -and she tries not to think about how they already  _ are  _ injured- “their defenses would’ve been down, and you know Berk would hunt them if they ever discovered, and  _ believed,  _ there to be a Night Fury in the forest. And the boy too!” She didn’t say Hiccup, because it was far too risky and she couldn’t trust them with his name. “He would’ve been brought back to Berk and most likely jailed!”

Under her glare and harsh words, all four of them shrink away from her anger. It’s a long moment before Snotlout finally speaks up, hesitantly and still glancing at the axe in her hand. 

“You know them, though, right? I saw you talking to the kid the second time I attacked them. Or- tried to attack them. A bit difficult, you know, with all the axe-throwing and threatening-“

Astrid holds up her axe and smiles. “Would you like me to throw it again?”

Snotlout shakes his head quickly, voice rising an octave and hands raising in surrender. “No, no axe-throwing, I didn’t mean it, it was a joke!”

She lowers her axe and sees Snotlout let out a breath of relief, and then she looks at him -  _ neutrally.  _ “I do know them. I’ve been talking with them for just a few days.”

Fishlegs frowns. “But you called the hunt a month and a half ago.”

Astrid nods. “I didn’t have much time to sneak out and see them.” She glares at Snotlout, again. “And the last time I did, they had tried to leave. Because of what  _ you  _ did. The boy thought that I lied to him about not wanting to hurt him. He threatened me, and thanks to  _ you _ , the trust he’d built in me was almost entirely destroyed.”

Snotlout glances away, muttering something under his breath that Astrid doesn’t care to find out, and Ruffnut speaks up next. “So what now? We have a dragon and a dragon-boy who want to leave, why don’t we let them leave?”

Now Astrid sighs defeatedly, staring down at the floor. “They can’t.”

“Why not?” Ruffnut asks. 

“They  _ did  _ leave,” Astrid says. “I came back… and the Night Fury was all alone in the cove. The boy was injured and unconscious, so… I took him to Gothi.”

Fishlegs gasps. “Where’s the Night Fury?”

“Still in the cove. He was injured too, and unconscious. He would’ve never let me take the boy otherwise.”

“Does Stoick know?”

Astrid looks up at him. “No. Do you think the village would have been so quiet if he did?”

Fishlegs sighs. “No…”

Ruffnut frowns. “So…  _ now  _ what are we gonna do? If the boy is at Gothi’s… how long until Stoick goes in and asks about him?”

Astrid looks down. “I don’t know. We need to get him out somehow, but he’s too wounded to leave without more medical attention, and his medical supplies aren’t nearly enough. The dragon can’t apply medicines, either, so we can’t bring them to his cave.”

Tuffnut looks up then, out at Berk, and his eyes widen. Astrid opens her mouth-

And gets cut off by Stoick, towering over her and with a stormy expression on his face. “Astrid,” he says. “Who is the boy at Gothi’s?”

Now  _ her  _ eyes widen - that was a much shorter time frame than she expected to figure something out about Hiccup, and she blurts out the cover story that she hadn’t fully refined yet, because she didn’t think Stoick would find out so fast, but now it’s all she has. “I found him,” she says quickly. “He- he was injured, and unconscious, so I brought him to Gothi. I didn’t want a big deal made of it so I asked her to keep it a secret,” she adds on impulse, adrenaline and fear shooting through her. “Neither of us were going to lie if you asked, though, I swear!”

Stoick stares her down, expression unflinching. Astrid stares back, ignoring the wild pounding of her heart, and it seems like forever until Stoick’s face softens and he steps back. 

He nods. “I believe ye. Come with me to Gothi’s. I want you to tell me what you know about him, and where he may have gotten his injuries.”

Stoick walks away then. Astrid shares a panicked glance with her friends, eyes wide and slightly trembling as the weight of what she has to do and lie about drops down on her, and she turns to follow Stoick. 

Hiccup is still unconscious when they make it to Gothi’s, but he looks a little better - some of the bruises have faded, and the bandages wrapped around some of his cuts have stayed white instead of being soaked in blood. He’s also been cleaned, face and body now free of dirt and blood, and Astrid resists the urge to go to him and touch him, just to be reassured that he’s alive and breathing. She doesn’t know when it was that she started caring about him so much, but it’s happened and now she can’t exactly stop the tight feeling in her chest when she thinks about Hiccup being hurt. 

“Do you know his name, Astrid?” Stoick asks. “Where did you find him?”

Astrid shakes her head, staring down at the ground. “I don’t know his name. I found him,” -she thinks of everywhere on Berk, because she knows she can’t tell Stoick the truth or they’ll find Toothless, and picks a location anywhere but the cove- “on the south side of the island, by the water. It looks like he’d washed up on shore.”

Stoick grunts. “When he wakes, we’ll ask him about his name, where he’s from, and what happened to him. We can’t have intruders on our island.”

Astrid nods, worry for Hiccup and thoughts about how she’s lying to the  _ Chief of Berk  _ making her hands shake and her heart pound. She turns away, hiding her face from Stoick. 

“Yes, Chief,” she says. 


	8. Chapter 8

The third day, she gets nothing exciting except for the looming threat of her marriage to Snotlout in three weeks, the villagers asking her about it and being pestered about the wedding choices. It’s when she nearly stabs a man with her axe that they finally leave her alone, and she stalks off to the forest to clear her head before she actually  _ does  _ stab someone with her axe. 

Of course, everything manages to go even  _ more  _ wrong than it is, right then.

She gets half an hour of peace in the forest before she hears yelling from the village - very  _ recognizable  _ yelling. There’s a raid happening, given by the shouts of  _ get down!  _ and  _ grab a weapon! _

Astrid looks back at the village - strange, there’s no dragons flying above it like a normal raid, but it’s just begun. Some raids take twenty minutes for the full flock of dragons to catch up to the ones who shot ahead - and they get to see what happens to those who fly ahead and take on Berk alone.

She starts running back, but she gets closer and two things happen. Two very important things.

One, she looks up at the sky and remembers the cold wind in her hair, the clouds drifting through her fingers and the ocean rising to meet her just before its mist sprayed her face and she skimmed just above it, on the back of Toothless. She remembers his imitation of a smile, the way he curled around Hiccup and the way they defended each other, moving like they were not two beings, but one singular creature, mind and body and soul. 

Astrid runs into the village, for the first time not to kill dragons, but to scare them away from Berk.

The second thing is that the villagers are gathered all around one spot, rather than running in every direction, and they’re all hitting something black in the center. Something that’s a familiar, bluish-tinted black, and Astrid’s stomach drops as she hears Toothless’s shriek of pain from the center of the villagers.

She slows a few feet from the crowd, because she can’t give herself away by defending him, and one hand comes up to her mouth as the crowd opens just for a moment. She stands there, eyes wide and her entire body going cold, as she watches ropes tie around Toothless’s wings and body, leather circle his mouth. She recognizes the look of panic on his face - not for himself, never for himself, but as his eyes dart around, for  _ Hiccup.  _ He came looking for Hiccup. “Oh, gods,” she breathes, in sheer shock and horror.

Toothless’s eyes land on her, meeting her gaze, and she watches his panicked expression dissipate, replaced by betrayal. Astrid feels everything she’s built, all the trust and the lies to keep herself safe from Berk and safe from Toothless and Hiccup, drop out from under her, as Toothless’s pupils narrow into angry slits at her and he huffs out smoke. He looks away, his head dropping to the side and eyes closing. Astrid watches his body go limp in the villager’s hands, sees his mouth open just enough to give a quiet, mournful whistle.

She stands there for a few more seconds, and then she turns and runs for Gothi’s. For Hiccup.

-0-0-0-

Astrid finds Stoick sitting by Hiccup’s bed when she comes in. He looks oddly perplexed, studying Hiccup’s sleeping face with a tension in his body that makes her think he’s trying to find something, or figure something out. 

“Chief,” she says, out of breath. Stoick looks up abruptly, leaning back and standing up - and, oddly, smoothing his expression out quickly. 

“What is it?”

Astrid glances past him to Hiccup, considering for a brief moment asking him about what he was thinking, but she puts it aside in favor of the much larger problem. “They have a Night Fury in the village.”

Stoick’s eyes harden. “Don’t lie to me, Astrid,” he starts, a threatening growl in his voice, but she shakes her head quickly. Something about the panicked light in her eyes must make him believe her, because he goes quiet and watches her sharply. 

“No, I’m not lying, Chief. The villagers have a Night Fury, trapped and bound,” she says, and she ignores the pang in her heart at those words, ignores the image of Toothless’s look of betrayal flashing through her mind as she does the only thing that will give Hiccup and Toothless the slightest of chances. “You have to come see it.”

_ Him,  _ her mind screams,  _ it’s a he,  _ but she ignores it and keeps looking up at Stoick. There’s no room for error here if she wants Hiccup and Toothless to survive as well as her. 

The chief glances out at the village from the window, then turns and rushes out and down the stairs. Astrid watches him go, and then turns to Hiccup. 

She walks to his bedside, where she can see the bandages wrapping around the brand poking out from beneath his shirt, and bandages on the cuts on his face, and yellow-green bruises coloring his cheeks and throat. She reaches out in an aborted movement to take his hand, and moves her hand to her stomach instead. 

She turns away after a long moment, guilt over his injuries and guilt over the way Toothless looked at her flooding through her, and she runs out the door and down the stairs, following Stoick’s path. 

By the time she gets to the bottom of the stairs, her emotions have been neatly locked away, and she finds Stoick hefting his axe and walking purposefully towards Toothless. The faces of the villagers around him are smug and satisfied. 

Astrid runs forward without thinking, the ice-cold horror shooting through her causing her to pull Stoick’s arm down as it lifts, one hand holding the axe and pulling it away from Toothless. 

She freezes as Stoick looks at her, expression stormy, and blurts out the first thing that comes to mind, heart pounding and adrenaline coursing through her, cursing herself for not thinking before she acted. That’s pretty much her  _ entire motto,  _ to think before she acts, rather than rush headlong into battle without a plan. 

But if she didn’t do this, then Toothless would be killed. 

“No, you can’t kill it!” she says, mind racing as she tries to think of an excuse. Stoick’s face grows darker. “We need to- to research it. I mean, we don’t know a-anything about Night Furies, right?” She curses the slight stutter in her voice, her mouth trying to go as fast as her mind is. “So put it in the cells. Study it, and then we’ll know more about them next time.”

There’s a long, heart-stopping moment in which Stoick is completely silent, glaring at her, and Astrid thinks she’s finally lost. All the lies, all the building trust, all the sneaking around, and here’s where she finally loses the game. 

Stoick steps back, lowering his axe, but suspicion still simmers in his gaze as he nods. He turns to the villagers. “Bring it to the cells and lock it up!” he yells, and Astrid watches the villagers rush to follow his command. Snotlout, Fishlegs, and the twins meet her gaze from across the circle.

Somehow, it doesn't seem like a victory.

-0-0-0-

Hiccup finally wakes up early the next day, with Astrid sitting right next to him, and his first question is predictable - besides his quick glance around and the recognition in his gaze, and then the flash of betrayal in his eyes when he looks at her. That makes her glance away, the weight of what she’s done heavy on her shoulders.    
  
“Where's my dragon?” Hiccup asks, tone dark as he watches her. Astrid doesn't look up.   
  
She can almost feel his gaze as it darts around, and when he speaks next, his voice is quiet, filled with pain and betrayal and anger. 

“You took me to Berk.”

Astrid can’t do anything but nod. She feels like she wants to cry, as Hiccup exhales and falls limp against the bed. 

“They killed Toothless,” he says, half question and half statement, and it’s the horror and despair of it that makes her look up, at Hiccup, who’s staring blankly at the ceiling. 

“No, they didn’t- I convinced them not to,” she blurts, and Hiccup’s green eyes flick to her, intelligent and sharp. “He’s in the cells. They’re studying him.”

Hiccup looks back at the ceiling, and a bitter smile twists his mouth. “Well, congratulations. You got both of us. Everything you ever wanted,” he says, bitter like his smile, and sarcastic. It’s such a twist of how he usually is, that Astrid’s guilt increases and she looks down. 

She doesn’t know what to say, and she doesn’t get the chance to, because Stoick walks in and glances between the two of them. 

“You’re awake,” he says to Hiccup, who, predictably, doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look at him. Instead, he sits up slightly and pulls his hood up, leaning against the wall and staring down at the bandages on his arm, as if examining the work of them. 

Stoick frowns when he doesn’t, his gaze darkening slightly. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Hiccup’s green eyes flick to Stoick quickly, and they’re filled with such vehemence and hatred that Astrid instinctively leans back, every instinct in her telling her to run. She stays sitting, but her entire body is tense as she glances between the two. 

Stoick takes that as understanding, and he glares as well, his temper easily flaring. “We’re providing you medical care, thanks to Astrid here. The least you could do is answer me,” he says harshly.

Hiccup scoffs quietly and stares back at the ceiling. Astrid notices then how his entire body is tense, and then she glances at Stoick, who’s studying his face like he was before, like he’s trying to figure something out, and she thinks there’s something she doesn’t know about these two. Something big, something important. 

Astrid stands up, putting herself between the two and the rising tension, and faces Stoick. It takes him a long moment to go from staring past her, at Hiccup, to looking at her, but when he does, she tries to keep his attention. “Let’s disarm him, since we don’t know if he’s friend or foe, and then put him in the prison,” she says as calmly and soothingly as she can. “You can talk to him there. You won’t get anywhere here.”

Stoick frowns. “How is the prison going to be any different than here?”

“Being imprisoned, not being imprisoned… there’s a difference. It could work, Chief,” -and she glances back at Hiccup, who’s glaring at her, and knows it most likely won’t, but she keeps going- “you never know.”

Stoick watches her for a long, silent moment. Astrid stares back, silently willing him to agree. She doesn’t know what she’s going to do if he doesn’t. 

“Fine,” he says finally, and Astrid has to fight not to breathe out in relief. 

“I can take him, Chief,” she says. 

Stoick nods. Astrid looks at Hiccup, who sits up when he realizes what’s happening and rises into a crouch with that weirdly smooth grace, hissing at them and glaring between the both of them, apparently weaponless since he doesn’t pull out his flaming sword or any other dagger. 

Stoick glares. “What, does he think he’s a dragon?”

Astrid nods - there’s no other explanation she can think of on the spot, and if she says this, maybe Stoick will allow Hiccup with Toothless. “I found him with the Night Fury. I think the dragon came looking for him.”

Stoick looks at her, his brow furrowing and the first tendrils of suspicion creeping into his gaze. Astrid doesn’t notice, still watching Hiccup and half-tense like before a fight, and Stoick nods slowly. 

“Then we’ll give him what he wants,” he says, and Astrid doesn’t notice the strange note in his voice as Stoick still watches her. “Put him with the Night Fury.”

Astrid looks back at him, nodding, then at Hiccup. She sees him back up against the wall the bed is against, still crouched, eyes scared and angry at the same time, hissing at them when they look back at him. 

“Hey,” she says softly - have to make this real, she knows, which means treating him like a wild animal, though she knows he’s smarter and sharper than any animal. “It’s fine, I’m going to bring you to your Night Fury.”

Stoick growls, his patience apparently having already run out. “Enough of this,” he says, and Astrid doesn’t have time to protest before Stoick grabs a bundle of rope from the table nearby and leaps forward, tackling Hiccup. Predictably, Hiccup leaps gracefully aside, eyes darting between Astrid and Stoick as Stoick recovers and starts for him again, and Astrid stands frozen between the two. 

Stoick tries once more, stalking forward and then lunging for Hiccup, but the dragon-boy slips past again. Astrid moves now, breaking out of her frozen trance and making her own lunge for Hiccup. 

Hers works, because she manages to grab his arm, spinning him so his back is against her chest and she holds both his wrists in one hand. She leans towards his ear. “Stop  _ fighting,  _ I’m bringing you to Toothless,” she hisses, fingers working to swiftly tie the rope Stoick hands her around his wrists. 

Hiccup turns his head, green eyes filled with hate as he glares at her, and he vehemently hisses, twisting out of her hold. He doesn’t stumble, his fluid, draconic grace doesn’t allow for that, but he does stop a few steps away, eyes widening as he realizes she succeeded in tying his wrists behind his back. He looks up at her, betrayal and pain flooding his gaze once again, and Astrid can only stare helplessly back. 

She watches his shoulders drop, watches Stoick put his hands on his shoulders and start leading him away, and even when Hiccup looks away she can’t get the image of the betrayal in his eyes out of her mind. 

Astrid sighs, following Stoick to the prison, and watches as Hiccup is led to Toothless’s cell. She sees Toothless’s eyes meet hers, sees him put together the pieces, and his eyes narrow. He puffs out smoke at her through his nose and turns away, looking over only to keep track of Hiccup. 

Astrid stares down at the ground. She feels Hiccup’s gaze on her from where he crouches in the cell, flinches when the door slams shut. Stoick glares at the dragon and boy, then turns and leaves without a word. He doesn’t insist on her leaving with him, so she finally looks up when the door to the prison closes. 

“Hiccup,” she says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for this to happen-“

Hiccup walks forward, for the first time more like a human than she’s ever seen him, and Astrid goes quiet from the sheer surprise of it and the intensity of his gaze as he stops inches away from her, separated by the bars of the cell. “You made your choice,” he says quietly, but his voice is hard and his eyes are flinty. “Now go.”

Astrid watches as Hiccup turns away, walking over to Toothless, now in that half-crouch of his, who slices a claw through the ropes around his wrists. Neither of them look at her as Hiccup sits in the curve of Toothless’s body, curling up and then being hidden by Toothless’s wing as it opens and folds over him. Toothless rests his head on his paws and watches her with the same sharp, hostile glare as the first day she met them, in a dark cave like the prisons, with Toothless covering Hiccup with his wing just like right now. 

Astrid’s shoulders drop. She nods, understanding just how much she messed up. Even if she does rescue Hiccup and Toothless, it’s likely they won’t ever come near her again. 

“Okay,” she says, in a soft whisper. She looks at the place where Hiccup is hidden beneath Toothless’s wing. “See you later, Hiccup,” she whispers, and turns to walk out of the prison. 

She doesn’t get a response. 

-0-0-0-

Hiccup listens to Astrid’s footsteps as they fade away, hears the door to the prison close, and he curls up tighter beneath Toothless’s wing. Pain shoots through him, both from his healing injuries and Astrid’s betrayal.

He knew he shouldn’t have trusted her. His own father betrayed him, eleven years ago. Some random Viking girl shouldn’t have been any different. 

But he was stupid, and let himself get caught up in golden-blond hair and blue eyes and her bright smile, like the sun. He thought that her defense of him and Toothless meant she was safe, that he could put his trust in a Viking like he hadn’t done in years.

Look where that got him, he thinks as he shivers in the cold prison, pressing against Toothless’s warm scales. Imprisoned, cold, injured, unarmed. In  _ Berk,  _ of all places. And  _ she  _ took him there.

He lets out a quiet whimper, and Toothless whines, looking back at him from where he’s curled beneath his wing. Hiccup gives a small, weak smile, shifting to rest his head on Toothless’s paws and stretching out. Toothless leans to his side, his front and back paws closing around Hiccup, tail curling around him and his wing folding over him until he’s entirely hidden. 

Toothless buries his head down into the curve of his wing and Hiccup stretches up to nuzzle at the underside of his jaw. Toothless warbles softly, pressing his nose to Hiccup’s hair as he relaxes and closes his eyes, slowly falling asleep.

-0-0-0-

Astrid makes it to the edge of the forest before she’s accosted by Fishlegs, Snotlout, and the twins, who put themselves in front of her and who all start talking at once, voices high and panicked. 

“That’s the Night Fury, that’s him that got captured-“

“Astrid, what are we going to do?”

“The  _ Chief  _ knows about them now!”

Astrid cuts them all off. “Enough!” she says, glaring at each of them. All four go suitably silent, shrinking away slightly from her anger. 

To be honest, she really couldn’t care less about what the others thought about their predicament. She’s concerned about  _ her  _ predicament, which is infinitely more complicated and involves so many more lies and subterfuge, and above all that, she can’t get the image of green eyes filled with pain out of her mind. 

“I’m not in the  _ mood  _ to listen to all of your theories and interruptions and jokes, okay?” she says, a bit harsher than necessary, but Astrid doesn’t care right now. “So shut up and listen to me.”

Silence. Astrid keeps her glare up before sighing and continuing in a slightly softer voice. 

“The Night Fury and the boy were captured. They’re in Berk’s prisons,” she says, and can practically  _ see  _ the questions rising in their minds. She sighs and responds with the truth, because it’s time that they knew and she can’t lie to anyone else. 

“So here’s the story...”


	9. Chapter 9

Hiccup wakes up with Toothless’s growl rumbling by his ear, and when Toothless feels him shift, he moves his wing and loosens his paws enough to allow Hiccup’s head to peek past his wing, watching Stoick and Astrid from where they stand in front of his cell.

Astrid is staring at him, but Hiccup doesn’t look at her. She made her choice, so Hiccup makes his, and instead he focuses on Stoick, who glares down at his position with Toothless.

The Viking chief walks forward and crouches down in front of his cell, gaze meeting Hiccup’s. “I want to know your name,” he says, voice rumbling and threatening. “I want to know what ye were doin’ on my island, and why ye’re with a devil like that.”

He glares at Toothless, and both Toothless and Hiccup growl at the same time. Hiccup retreats back underneath Toothless’s wing. He isn’t in the mood for dealing with Stoick, or Astrid. He doesn’t want any of this. The prison is cold, he’s cold, and all he wants is to soar the skies with Toothless again, without Vikings in the way.

Stoick doesn’t have the same feelings. He persists, banging on the bars hard enough to make Hiccup flinch, and Toothless roars at him, curling tighter around his human half, glaring fiercer at the Vikings, teeth bared. Hiccup pulls his knees up to his chest and rests his chin on them, wrapping his arms around and studying the pattern on Toothless’s wing.

“Tell me your name _ , _ ” he hears Stoick growl, and Hiccup pulls himself in tighter. His predicament is dropping down on him, now, closing in and suffocating him. He’s in Berk’s prison, surrounded by Vikings, with his  _ father _ . No way out, and they could take Toothless and hurt him at any time, they could do so many things and Hiccup couldn’t stop them-

Hiccup breathes. Slowly, in, out. He feels Toothless sense his near panic attack, feels his chest push against his back as he exaggerates his breathing, letting Hiccup easily match his own breaths to Toothless’s.

Hiccup puts one hand on Toothless’s scales, tracing the patterns and focusing only on tracing the patterns. Toothless is here, now, and not hurt. They’re safe, they’re mostly alone, and whatever comes in the future will be dealt with together, like always. 

Stoick, however, is unsatisfied, and Hiccup tenses further as his tone gets darker and yet more threatening. 

“How about this,” he growls. “You tell me your name, and I give you food.”

Hiccup twitches, burying his face in his knees. The people on the Dragon Hunter ship starved him too; he doesn’t know how long he’d last on Berk, already feeling the hunger pains start up again from when they’d last given him a small meal of hard, dry bread on the Hunter’s ship. 

And then there’s the matter of it being his  _ father  _ starving him. Even if Stoick doesn’t know, it still hurts Hiccup, both knowing that his father would stoop to that level for a boy who is friends with a dragon, and for his son, however unknowing he is. They’re the same age, and Hiccup doubts that Stoick hasn’t been reminded of his exiled son at least once during his capture. He’s taken a cold sort of satisfaction from it, even.

“Chief,” he hears Astrid say, half indignance and half forced calm, and he stills, listening intently. 

“Yes, Astrid?” comes Stoick’s voice, sounding as if it’s been forcibly pulled from that threatening growl of his and barely held back. 

“Isn’t that a bit…  _ harsh?”  _ Astrid’s voice replies. Hiccup raises his head from his knees, hearing the slight sound of Toothless’s ear twitch as he listens as well. The anger from Astrid’s betrayal still burns through him, but it lessens slightly -  _ just  _ slightly - listening to her defend him. If that’s what this is. He can’t assume. Assumptions about Astrid are what got him here in the first place. 

“It’s interrogation, Astrid. It’s what needs to be done,” Stoick says harshly. 

“Yeah, I know, but…” she pauses, and Hiccup slowly moves to the side. Toothless lifts his wing to allow Hiccup to slide over, knees still pulled against his chest and arms wrapped around them, half-visible from beneath Toothless’s wing and watching Astrid from where she stands facing Stoick. 

She glances over, meeting his gaze from beneath his hood. He tilts his head in both passive interest and silent judgment, and watches the minute, subconscious shift of her body, recognizing that what she says now will be a part of determining whether she is trusted again in the future. Toothless watches her next to Hiccup, and her eyes flick to him as well for a brief moment. 

She looks back up at Stoick. “He’s as young as I am, Chief. I’d see doing this to an  _ adult,  _ but even then… he’s not a murderer, Chief. He washed up on our island. He hasn’t killed anyone, or committed any crime.”

_ Washed up.  _ So Astrid lied to Stoick about where she found him - which, he still regrets that Toothless trusted her enough to let her help him rescue him, and that he pushed Toothless to those measures in the first place with his capture. He has to make it clear to her that that won’t happen again, not after her betrayal, even if he’s grateful for the rescue and the lie.

“He made friends with a dragon,” Stoick growls in response. 

Stoick looks at him, starting when he sees Hiccup and Toothless both watching back. Hiccup meets his gaze, tilting his head like he did with Astrid, in only passive interest this time, but he studies Stoick too; the gray streaks in his beard, the lines on his face and the way he’s aged since Hiccup last saw him eleven years ago, and then Stoick looks down. His shoulders drop and he turns his face away after a long moment. 

“You’re right,” he says, more defeatedly than Hiccup’s ever heard him. “I was being too harsh.”

“You try talking to him,” he says, gruff again and no longer vulnerable. “I have things to do.”

Astrid watches Stoick leave, and then turns to Hiccup, who is seriously considering moving back beneath Toothless’s wing. He feels it lift slightly in silent, tempting invitation. 

He stays, though, if only to hear her out. She gave him a chance, when she could’ve killed him and Toothless on the Hunter’s ship. It’s only fair for him to return the favor, and some traitorous part of him wants to give her a chance anyway, despite her betrayal and even if he hadn’t let her get close enough to both him and Toothless. 

“Hiccup,” she says as she sits down in front of the cage, in that same placating quiet voice that somehow  _ works  _ on him, instantly calming some deep, buried part of him and holding his attention the way nothing else but his inventions do. He shoves it down, keeping his gaze to mere interest and judgment and nothing else. “I’m on your side,” she pleads. “I don’t want to hurt you, you have to know that.”

Hiccup’s brow furrows and his tone is steely. “I’m in Berk’s prisons,” he says, and doesn’t elaborate. He knows she knows, by the way her shoulders drop slightly. 

She looks down. Hiccup watches her every movement, having spent enough years with dragons that he can tell the intent in even the smallest motions, the most minuscule twitches. It’s a kind of body language that most humans don’t learn by themselves, but dragons communicate  _ only _ in those signals, except when they exaggerate them. Hiccup had to learn them, or he wouldn’t survive. 

“When I found you on that ship, you were starved and injured, bruised and branded. I took you back to the cove, but Toothless-“ she pauses as the Night Fury gives a soft growl at his name - not harsh, though. They’re both listening too intently to truly threaten her. “Toothless was hit with two arrows. We barely made it back.”

Hiccup goes still, and then he looks at Toothless. His other half glances back, guilt in his eyes at Hiccup’s silent question of  _ why didn’t you tell me _ . He knows now why Astrid couldn’t leave him; Toothless was injured, too, and he feels traitorous hope rise in him thinking about Astrid bandaging Toothless and then trying to help him.

The moment breaks a pause later, when Astrid continues and both their gazes are torn away to look back at her. 

“I bandaged Toothless, who’d passed out, and left him in the cave, but Hiccup…” she looks up at him, and Hiccup feels the deep, buried part of him leap at the pained desperation in her eyes. “You were unconscious too. You’d been hit hard by the fall, and you were already severely injured. I had to take you to Berk. I couldn’t sneak away to treat you with medicine every day, and Gothi needed you in a healing sleep anyway. I didn’t have a choice. If I did, you wouldn’t be here.”

Astrid glances down again, staring at her knees. Hiccup watches her, and feels Toothless’s gaze turn to him, the soft breath of air on his shoulder whispering  _ question.  _

Astrid’s body signals read  _ guilt  _ and  _ regret  _ and  _ despair,  _ in the way she pulls her knees up to her chest like him and she stares down at them, wrapping her arms around them and slumping her shoulders. Hiccup watches her for a moment longer, and then he puts a light hand on Toothless’s wing, lifting it so he can rise into a crouch with his hands for balance, and move towards her. 

She doesn’t look up as he does, but he sees her body freeze. She knows he’s moving, knows that he stops a breath away from the cell bars and hesitates.

He watches her again, just for a long moment to be sure. He’s been with dragons eleven out of nineteen years of his life, he’s learned their mannerisms better than he has humans and the expression in his eyes is that of sharp draconic interest, gaze flitting from place to place on her body, from golden-blond hair to lowered crystal-blue eyes, to slumped shoulders and long, pale fingers interlaced from where her arms wrap around her knees. There’s nothing that signals her betrayal again, and every part of his traitorous body wants to forgive her, wants to see her smile at him and be able to talk to her freely again. It’s not something he’s used to feeling, and it’s maybe that which allows him to follow it just a little, and reach out to the bars. 

“Astrid,” he says quietly, nearly a whisper, flinching slightly as she looks up sharply. This is foreign territory for him, and the draconic,  _ Toothless _ part of him is shrinking away in alarm at the unknown of it all. 

His reach for her turns into an aborted movement as he instead curls his fingers around the cold iron bars, heart rate speeding up. He doesn’t know what to say, now, because she isn’t forgiven. This is Berk’s prisons; she’s not forgiven, but he will let her build her case. That is all she can do, build her case and maybe Hiccup will forgive her in the future, after all of this is over. Maybe she will be able to gain his fragile trust again. 

Toothless whines  _ worry  _ behind him, a low hiss of  _ threat  _ and  _ betray-us  _ threaded beneath it. Hiccup doesn’t respond, instead glancing down at the floor. Astrid shifts, her body reading briefly  _ surprise  _ at the way he ignores Toothless. 

“I will listen,” he says simply, looking back up and meeting Astrid’s gaze. He watches it dawn on her, watches the way she realizes what he means and the way her entire body sags  _ relief.  _

He will listen to what she has to say, and what she does, and then he will decide whether he can forgive and trust her again. It’s a chance; not forgiveness, not trust, but a chance, and some part of him, buried deep, wants to simply trust her again, wants to revel in the warmth of her again.

“Thank you,” she says. 

Hiccup tenses after a long moment, glancing away and shifting slightly away from the bars, the suffocating feeling of being close to humans starting to press in on him - and then somehow, like she always managed to do before, Astrid recognizes that he’s done with the encounter and she stands up without another word. 

He looks up at her as she looks down one more time, the nearly overwhelming sense of _danger_ at the way she looks down at him and _back-to-Toothless_ almost forcing him to turn away. 

He stays just long enough to hear her final words, though, spoken softly and somehow calming his draconic instincts just enough for him to watch her leave. 

“I’ll find a way to get you out,” she says. “No matter if I never regain your trust, I will get you and Toothless out.”

She turns away and leaves after a long moment. Hiccup watches;  _ you already have my trust, from some buried part of me,  _ he doesn’t say. And, from an even deeper,  _ human  _ part of him that he’s smothered for eleven years:  _ come back.  _

The door slams, and Hiccup watches the door for another long moment before he turns back to Toothless, walking over to him and clicking  _ question  _ and  _ where are you hurt?  _ and  _ why not tell me?  _ about his injuries. 

-0-0-0-

It’s another two days before Astrid comes back with Stoick; in that time, Stoick has come twice, once with food and water and another with a weapon. Both times, Hiccup refused to answer his question, instead sitting in stony silence even when Stoick dragged him out from underneath Toothless’s wing and nearly got his hand bitten off for it. 

Hiccup ignores the sound of the prison door slamming and the heavy, familiar footsteps that follow, curling up tighter in the safe curve of Toothless’s body and feeling the dragon give a low purr in response. 

His eyes flick open, though, when he hears the soft, familiar scuff of Astrid’s boots in front of his cell, and he feels Toothless shift as well, both of them listening intently. 

“Dragon-boy,” Stoick rumbles, in that angry-yet-defeated growl he’s adopted over the past four days. 

Hiccup hesitates. He can still feel the heated touch of Stoick’s fingers wrapped around his wrist, dragging him out from the safety of Toothless’s wing, and more than anything he wants the Chief to leave. Astrid can stay, he  _ wants  _ her to stay and just… be near him. She’s comforting in a little the same way Toothless is, as someone he can trust and turn his back to no matter what, and he won’t be hurt. 

But that isn’t going to happen, and he’s already been hurt. So Hiccup sighs and shifts just enough to sit up and lean against Toothless’s side, barely visible from beneath Toothless’s wing to the two watching him but able to see them nearly perfectly clearly. 

Stoick is crouched in front of the bars, and his eyes lock onto Hiccup when he appears. 

“I’m going to try this again,” he says. “You will tell me your name, or I am going to separate you and that dragon so you don’t see each other again.”

Astrid inhales sharply, her gaze flicking to Hiccup and meeting his own as he looks at her, eyes wide and his fingers pressing into Toothless’s scales. Toothless gives a low whimper next to him, nudging his nose into Hiccup’s side. 

Hiccup turns to him, rubbing his hands on black scales and meeting Toothless’s mournful gaze as he looks up at him. 

Toothless warbles that soft noise that means  _ love  _ and  _ affection  _ and  _ together  _ and  _ eternity  _ all in one. Hiccup responds with a similar sound, pressing his face to Toothless and closing his eyes.

_ Won’t leave you,  _ he says, in a series of draconic clicks and whistles. 

Toothless whistles  _ Alpha hurt you-me  _ back, glaring at Stoick, and Hiccup glares as well before they look back at the other and Toothless warbles  _ sorrow.  _

It’s been a long time since Hiccup ever prioritized his identity and past over Toothless, but now he does, a glimmer of a hope forming as he presses his forehead to Toothless’s nose, humming the quiet sound of  _ us,  _ and then he pulls back and walks to the bars. Part of him wants to run; every  _ instinct  _ is telling him to run, but he stays and raises his chin and stares defiantly up into the angry green gaze of his father. 

The hope that he was bluffing dies when Stoick gives a nod and reaches to unlock the cell door. 

Hiccup doesn’t look at the key, or give any indication of what he’s going to do, but as soon as the door swings open he ducks underneath Stoick’s reaching arm and starts running at full speed to the door. 

The cell door slams behind him and Hiccup turns at the sound of Toothless’s shriek, seeing him with his claws against the bars and Stoick glaring at Hiccup. 

“Come with me or your dragon dies,” Stoick says. 

The sheer horror of it makes Hiccup shriek  _ no  _ in a noise more dragon than human, and Stoick pulls out a dagger in a deliberate motion. 

Hiccup is moving forward before he knows what he’s doing, ignoring Toothless’s hisses and whistles of  _ no  _ and  _ save-you-leave-me,  _ pausing just two feet from Stoick. His eyes are down, staring at the ground, heart still racing and mind still stuck on the thought of Toothless dying, cold horror paralyzing him with fear. 

He flinches when Stoick grabs his shoulders, roughly pushing him to walk upright down the corridor of empty cells until they reach the end. Hiccup looks up only to see Astrid’s eyes, filled with pain and apology as they watch him, and then Stoick opens the door and pushes him inside. 

He drops to a half-crouch and instantly leaps to the corner, crouching there in as small a form as he can make himself and turning to look at Stoick as he glares at Hiccup before leaving with an annoyed huff. 

Astrid watches Stoick, and then she turns to Hiccup, walking to the cell bars and crouching down. She reaches her hand through hesitantly. “I’m sorry, Hiccup. I don’t have a plan yet, but I will get you out. I promise.”

Hiccup doesn’t move, finding that he’s far past verbal interaction with humans today, let alone physical, and Astrid slowly pulls her hand back after a long moment, slumping slightly when she sees Hiccup press himself into a tighter curl, the only visible part of him his green eyes as they look sharply out from beneath his fur hood. 

He doesn’t move as she leaves without another word, and it’s only when the prison door slams that he tilts his head back and lets out a mournful dragon-call, grieving and hurt. 

There isn’t a response. Hiccup buries his head in his knees and staves off the panic and the fear, channeling it into his long-accumulated anger at his father and at Berk. 

He’s so tired of this cell, tired of being locked up in Berk and unable to fly with Toothless. They’re meant for the sky, meant to weave through clouds and dive down to the ocean and soar up to the sky, meant to be  _ free.  _ The cage presses in on him like a heavy weight, unnatural and strange and  _ human _ .

He buries his head in his knees, spending the hours thinking until he falls asleep in the cell. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> give thanks, readers, to bellinda, who commented telling me to "hurry up and continue" this story, which, adding to my general tiredness and struggling through homework for four hours plus school and work all day today, nearly shot my motivation to post this chapter. but, the other 99% of you aren't as shitty, and so i'm posting the chapter for all of you.

Sunlight shines through to the cove three days later when Astrid walks into it, sitting on a rock nearby and opening Fishlegs’ second edition of the Book of Dragons in an attempt to banish the sound of Hiccup’s dragon-call echoing from the prison, filled with so much vivid, animalistic pain and grief that it hadn’t stopped plaguing her since that night, echoing in her dreams and all her thoughts. She starts reading it, shoving down the guilt and fear and pain and replacing it with the memories of when she first met Hiccup, a month and a half ago. Talking to him, being saved by him, being brought back to Berk. His crooked half-smile, the way he and Toothless moved so fluidly together, when he told her Toothless’s name. 

She flips through the pages, scanning all of Hiccup’s neat annotations. Most of them are feeding habits, things the dragons love, and there isn’t much he adds about how to hurt them. Typical, she thinks, as she flips past the Night Fury page. 

And then she finds more words there, an entire page that isn’t officially titled, but is scribbled with notes. 

_ None of the food is eaten,  _ she reads, pausing to focus on the notes. 

_ Toothless led me to the island. There’s some sort of call the Queen gives out to lure the dragons in.  _

_ Toothless seemed to be unable to resist the call.  _

_ There were lost Viking ships all around, broken into splinters from where they’d crashed. Toothless was able to sense the sea stacks where I couldn’t.  _

Astrid frowns, rereading the notes. 

_ There’s some sort of call the Queen gives out- _

She inhales sharply, realization dawning on her. Hiccup found the nest.  _ The  _ Nest. The one her tribe has been searching for for  _ centuries.  _

She glances back down at the page, skimming the notes once more for any other clues. The Nest can only be found by a dragon, she gets that, but there’s something else that seems off. 

_ None of the food is eaten.  _

_ They drop the food down a hole, and if a dragon doesn’t provide enough, they get eaten themselves.  _

Astrid looks up, flipping the book closed in her hands, mind racing. This- this could solve  _ all their problems.  _ If they defeated their Queen, then the dragons wouldn’t need to steal food. Berk wouldn’t have to fight them - Stoick could see that dragons weren’t evil, and could let Hiccup and Toothless go. The war between Berk and dragons could  _ end.  _ For  _ good.  _

She stands up, a new determination in her step. If she tells Stoick, all they need to do is find a way to kill the Queen and then Hiccup and Toothless will be free. Stoick has no reason to keep them - the only grudge he has against them is that Hiccup is friends with a dragon, and he doesn’t know whether there’s more of them, if they’re friend or foe. And Astrid knows Stoick doesn’t want to kill him, otherwise he would have and this mess would never have existed in the first place. 

Astrid grins and starts her run back to Berk. 

-0-0-0-

“Chief!” 

Astrid skids to a stop in front of Stoick, who turns and looks down at her with confusion and irritation on his face. 

“Astrid? What are ye doin’ here?”

She looks up at him, eyes wide and Fishlegs’ Book of Dragons held in her hands. “I found a way to stop the dragons. We don’t have to fight them anymore, Chief, we can end the war!”

Stoick’s eyes widen now, and he turns to face her full-on, all his attention focused on her. It’s a little intimidating, especially with the stakes and consequences of what she’s suggesting, but she has to keep going. “Explain,” he says. 

She takes a breath. “You know the dragon-boy locked in the prison, right?”

Stoick’s face darkens at the reminder of his failure to figure out anything about Hiccup, and he nods. 

“He got Fishlegs’ Book of Dragons, and he made notes in it. One of the pages talks about the nest,” Astrid continues. “ _ The  _ Nest. The one we’ve been searching for for centuries.”

She can’t help the grin that spreads across her face as she continues almost breathlessly. “Only a dragon can find it, and the Queen controls them all. She’s the one sending all of the dragons on raids. They don’t eat any of it! They bring it all back to her, and if they don’t bring enough, then they get eaten themselves.”

Stoick catches on, a sort of awed joy entering his voice as he finishes her thoughts. “If we kill the Queen, then the raids will stop.”

Astrid nods, her grin widening. “Yeah.”

Stoick looks up, projecting his voice and catching the undivided attention of every Viking in the vicinity. “Ready the ships! We’re going to the Dragon’s Nest!”

-0-0-0-

Hiccup looks up from where he’s curled in his cell when he hears the prison door open, and there are two pairs of footsteps. One stops only a few steps in rather than going to the end where he is, and another pair is familiar, walking towards his cell. He uncurls, rising to a crouch, watching the shadows elongate in front of his cell, until Stoick appears, his eyes dark as he glares at him. Hiccup glares right back, green eyes fiery with defiance and stubbornness. 

“You’re so friendly with dragons,” Stoick growls. “Now you’re going to help me kill one.”

Hiccup’s eyes widen as Stoick unlocks the cell, but he’s not close enough to run out before he closes the door, or save Toothless while he’s at it. He’s stuck in the corner as Stoick stalks forward, but he growls steadily and gives a low hiss when Stoick gets a foot away from him. 

“Come with me, dragon-boy,” Stoick rumbles, an unmistakable threat in the way he moves and talks that makes Hiccup’s entire body tense, poised like a cornered animal - which is exactly what he is. 

Hiccup lashes out at Stoick when he reaches out, pulling a thin leather cord by his wrist and releasing the sharp claws from the leather pad on the back of his hand. Stoick gasps in surprise as the points cut shallowly along his arm, before he yanks it back and his glare grows darker and more threatening. 

Hiccup pulls the other cord, releasing the other claws and balling his hands into fists, letting the sharp claws curl over his fingers and crouching defensively, his glare matching Stoick’s. 

Of all the things Stoick has done to him, and made him do, he  _ will not  _ kill a dragon. That is something unthinkable, something so  _ wrong  _ that Hiccup hasn’t imagined himself doing it for eleven years, even when he was pinned against a rock with a Night Fury’s jaws roaring in his face and thought he would die right then and there. 

He will not kill a dragon. 

Stoick growls in frustration, his hand reaching for his axe on his back and unsheathing it, hefting it in one hand and looking down at Hiccup. 

Hiccup’s eyes widen at the threat - this he cannot beat. His claws won’t work against an axe, and neither will his blade if he had it. There is no way for Hiccup to defeat Stoick like this, unarmed and defenseless except for eight small pretend-claws. 

Stoick raises the axe. Hiccup shrieks  _ fear  _ like a dragon, ducking and covering his head, curling into a protective ball, heart racing and eyes closed. 

The blow never comes, but instead Hiccup slowly looks out from underneath his hood to see Stoick watching him,  _ sadness  _ reading in all his body signals and in his eyes. The axe is embedded in the ground next to him. 

Hiccup tilts his head at the sudden change, but only for a second. Stoick wipes the expression off his face, his body shifting to that of  _ threat,  _ and moves fast enough to catch Hiccup by surprise, taking his arm and pulling him upright. 

Hiccup yelps and struggles, kicking and fighting enough to get annoyed grunts of effort out of Stoick before his arms are pulled behind his back and he feels rope tie around them, in a complex knot that’s tight around his wrists and unreachable by his claws. 

Stoick doesn’t say anything, only puts his hands on Hiccup’s shoulders and roughly steers him out of the cell and towards the doors of the prison. Hiccup doesn’t see Toothless in the cell by the door, and a cold fear settles into his stomach, more permanent than any other time he’s been scared here before. 

He blinks at the bright light as Stoick leads him out and down towards Berk’s dock. Hiccup looks around, at the mass of humans carrying weapons and other machinery to the docks, and feels himself shrink away from them. All his instincts are screaming at him to run, to get away from so many people, especially Vikings, that for only a moment, he forgets it’s his father and tormenter behind him and he cringes back, pressing into Stoick’s stomach. 

Stoick doesn’t stop, almost pushing Hiccup forward, and Hiccup’s body tenses, heart rate picking up as they weave through the crowd. 

A Viking bumps into his shoulder and Hiccup lets out an involuntary whimper, quiet and half-bitten off. The stress of the past two weeks is pressing down on him now; being injured and unconscious in Berk’s healer’s house, and then being trapped in the prisons and interrogated, along with the pain of Astrid’s betrayal, and then being separated from Toothless, even if only for three days, while still interrogated. And now this, being forced into a throng of Vikings bigger than him and stronger than him and being unarmed and incapacitated during it, with no idea of where Toothless is. 

Hiccup sees the boat, sees Stoick’s path towards it, and his fear increases. His breaths come short with the sudden weight of where he is, of where he will be - stranded with Vikings on a boat in the middle of the ocean, without Toothless, for as many hours as they want to keep him there. No escape, and it’s all too easy for them to simply throw him overboard and let him drown. Then they’d have Toothless, they’d have his other half and he’d be alone in the world, without Hiccup, and it’s  _ wrong,  _ it’s  _ lonely  _ and  _ bad  _ and  _ wrong.  _

His eyes dart panicked around the docks, meeting the curious gazes of Vikings as he passes by, and shrinking away from them, flinching whenever a Viking passes too close. 

Then there’s a shriek, a familiar shriek of  _ heart  _ that means  _ Hiccup,  _ and all other thoughts flee his mind as Hiccup’s head snaps up, gaze flicking frantically around the docks for a flash of obsidian scales. 

_ Toothless,  _ Hiccup whistles, except it really means  _ self  _ to other dragons, but Hiccup and Toothless don’t care. They’ve long since accepted that each other’s names sometimes come out as  _ heart  _ and  _ love  _ and  _ self,  _ because they’re each other’s self as much as they are their own, and the same with their hearts and souls. 

Hiccup spots Toothless, strapped and muzzled and still growling and shrieking  _ heart  _ and  _ self  _ at Hiccup through the leather, and he growls himself, kicking back against Stoick and renewing his fight, whistling his own calls for Toothless all the while. 

Stoick grunts and moves his hands down Hiccup’s arms, tightening his fingers there and giving a low growl when Hiccup turns his head, green eyes filled with vehement fire as he keeps struggling as hard as physically possible. The Vikings around him, already curious, are now openly staring, glancing between the dragon and the boy fighting to be near each other. 

Hiccup smiles darkly as Toothless tosses his head and knocks a Viking down to slide across the docks and into the water, while his tail swings back and forth, smacking into any Viking that gets close to it. Stoick grunts again with the effort of holding Hiccup in place and not letting go as he twists and kicks, and then his fingers slip. 

It’s the slightest movement, but Hiccup feels it like he feels every human touch like a brand on his skin, and he wrenches himself hard, away from Stoick, whose hands slip and let go.  _ Toothless,  _ he whistles as he runs, hands still bound, and gets an answering chirp as he stops by him. 

Toothless nuzzles his head into Hiccup, both of them letting out a low purr at being with the other again, but only for a moment. Toothless growls at a Viking coming up behind Hiccup, and Hiccup turns, pressing his back to Toothless and giving his own growl at the advancing crowd of Vikings. 

Stoick’s voice rises from the back of them, catching the attention of dragon, boy, and all the Vikings. “Let him be,” he says, walking forward through the crowd. He meets Hiccup and Toothless’s matching glares with a look that isn’t his own glare, but rather just sadness and a slight tinge of annoyance. 

“I’ll take care of him,” Stoick says, dismissing the Vikings, and he stalks forward towards the dragon and boy. Hiccup glares up at him, fiery and defiant, but Stoick only takes the chain Toothless’s wooden cart is attached to and pulls it, wheeling it down the docks. “Come on, dragon.”

Hiccup follows - he has no other choice, outnumbered and outmatched as he is. That’s a bad thing, this is not at all what Hiccup and Toothless are supposed to be, trapped and defenseless, but they’re  _ together  _ again, and that’s better than they were before. They can take on anything as long as they’re together. 

Toothless’s platform is hooked onto a chain and lifted, and Hiccup yelps  _ no-mine  _ at the threat and climbs onto the platform, locking his legs around Toothless’s leg and hanging on as the platform rises. Toothless turns and pushes his hood back to nuzzle into Hiccup’s hair with a purr, an answering one coming from Hiccup as he presses back.

The platform sways and Hiccup yelps as he leans outwards, caught only by Toothless’s teeth in the collar of his shirt. He looks back at Toothless, then down at the gradually fading ground, and whimpers softly, moving further towards Toothless until he’s nearly bent beneath his front and tightening his legs around his paw. 

The platform lands on the ship, rocking it, and Toothless hisses at the Vikings who chain down the wood, giving looks at Hiccup as he hides in the shadow of Toothless that range from curious to disdainful. 

Hiccup glares at them all, shoving down the fear and ignoring his racing heart. He sees Stoick step on the ship just as it starts moving, and both Hiccup and Toothless glare at him as he walks past them and leans in, gaze dark and his voice a hiss. 

“Take us home,  _ devil.” _

-0-0-0-

Astrid watches the two in front of her, the Night Fury muzzled and chained and the boy curled around his front paw, and she wonders what she’s done. Of all the things she meant to happen by going out to kill the nest’s Queen, this was not it. Hiccup and Toothless were supposed to be safe back on Berk - imprisoned and separated, but safe. They were supposed to be let go after this, not brought on the boat with them. Astrid doesn’t know what she’ll do if they drown because the ship is set on fire and they can’t escape. 

She doesn’t want to reveal herself to them, yet. She has no idea if the dragon can smell her, but it will be riskier if they know she’s here than if they think she isn’t. Astrid can’t risk the Vikings finding out about her relationship with them. 

So she stays at the back of the ship, strangely calm despite the fact that this is  _ it.  _ The thing Vikings have been waiting and searching for for centuries, the thing that may be the freedom for Hiccup and Toothless, the event that will change Berk forever. 

Astrid straightens her spine, watches the horizon, and leans with the ship as it turns into the dense, cold fog of Helheim’s Gate. 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> very short chapter of straight-up action that is very canon-compliant. it diverges again next chapter, and then we're near the end.

Hiccup shivers in the fog, glancing worriedly up at Toothless as he watches the Queen’s call make his entire body go unnaturally tense and still, ear-flaps twitching and head tilting towards the sound. He presses his face to Toothless’s scales, whining  _ comfort  _ and  _ where are you  _ to Toothless. He doesn’t respond, and Hiccup shivers again, tightening his legs around Toothless’s paw as the ship turns and he leans to the left. 

It seems like forever until the ship hits the black rocks of the beach, and Hiccup flinches as the noises of the Vikings grow increasingly louder when they start yelling to unload, jumping out onto the beach and forming lines in front of the massive mountain. 

The island screams  _ wrong  _ to Hiccup, presses in on his senses and makes him shrink away from the island, comforted only slightly by Toothless’s warmth as he lifts his paw. Hiccup takes the cue and shifts forward, feeling Toothless’s claw come down on the rope binding his wrists, starting to saw back and forth.

He can’t leave the ship, not with Toothless on it and not without the use of his hands, but with the rope cut and the Vikings all distracted with the Queen, he can set Toothless free and they can escape once and for all. Let the Vikings fight to their death; they’ve been doing it for centuries, and Hiccup is tired of humans. He wants to find an island, past all the Dragon Hunters and Vikings, where he and Toothless can live peacefully without humans to interfere. 

And then he sees Astrid step in front of them, and he doesn’t want to leave her. He watches her as she crouches down in front of them, seeing Hiccup’s distress as the mountain shakes with the force of the Queen being roused and he looks around, shifting nervously with the thick knot still being cut around his wrists, heart rate picking up with the overwhelming sense of  _ threat  _ and  _ danger  _ and  _ wrong  _ closing in on all sides. 

“Do you have a plan?” she asks. Hiccup nods, pulling his gaze back to her, and she smiles. “What is it?”

His answer cuts off with a terrified shriek as fire erupts all around them, torching the ships and clogging the air with smoke. The flame lasts for several minutes as the Queen swings her head, roaring angrily. 

Astrid and Hiccup look up from their protective curls at the sinking ships around them, and the ship they’re on that’s about to follow the same fate, and Hiccup’s eyes widen. He looks back, pulling desperately against the ropes, but they don’t come loose and he whimpers  _ fear.  _

Astrid pulls her axe out, slicing the ropes easily, and then they start working on Toothless’s chains. The ship pitches dangerously, throwing Astrid and Hiccup across it and nearly overboard, and then Hiccup and Astrid have to pull themselves up to Toothless as the bow dips into the water, cold lapping at their feet. 

Toothless whimpers when the ship dips further and neither of them can get the heavy wooden neck piece off of him. Hiccup whines  _ sorrow  _ and  _ terror  _ at the thought that Toothless may not escape,  _ they  _ may not escape. 

There’s a high-pitched whistle in the air, and Hiccup stumbles back as Stoick’s axe embeds itself into the wood of the ring, a loud series of cracks sounding as it splinters it. He looks up to see Stoick running towards them, leaping for the ship, which tilts just then and both Hiccup and Astrid go sliding to one side, Hiccup landing with his back pressed against Astrid’s stomach. 

The ship leans to their side then, and both scream as they fall into the water. Toothless shrieks as his platform goes with the ship, turning sideways and hitting the sand before beginning to tilt to land upside-down on the floor. 

Hiccup’s eyes widen and he shrieks  _ denial _ , reaching out to Toothless, but that only gives him a mouthful of water, and his vision starts to go black as he struggles for air and gets water instead. He whimpers  _ Toothless  _ as he starts to go limp in the water, eyes drifting closed. 

Stoick dives in front of his vision, an iron bar of an arm wrapping around his waist and pulling him up. Hiccup screams and kicks, Toothless shrieking as he slowly disappears beneath the tilting ship, but Stoick doesn’t let go, depositing Hiccup and Astrid on the shore and diving right back in. 

Hiccup rolls to his side and coughs out water, fighting for air between coughs and the water streaming out of his lungs. Astrid crouches near him, not daring to touch, but still worried. 

“Toothless,” Hiccup rasps desperately, clearing his throat. Panic still courses through him, cold and making his heart race and throat close up; Toothless  _ can’t  _ die, it’s always been Hiccup-and-Toothless and there is no only Hiccup, or only Toothless. It’s as unthinkable as the sun not rising. 

Hiccup rolls to his back just as Toothless erupts from the water with a splash, spraying water over both Hiccup and Astrid. He deposits Stoick on the beach, landing and then looking back at Hiccup, who looks up at him and smiles. 

_ Us-fight,  _ Toothless chirps, looking out at the Queen before back at Hiccup,  _ save-dragons-together-us.  _

Hiccup nods, pushing himself up and walking over to Toothless, swinging himself up on his saddle and looking up at the panicked dragons flying around the Queen. Toothless is right; they may let Vikings fight to their deaths, but they will not leave dragons to be tormented by the dark Queen. They have to kill this dragon.

Hiccup and Toothless both tense, crouching down as Toothless’s wings spread and Hiccup presses himself to the saddle, and then Toothless takes off. 

Hiccup can’t help the smile that spreads across his face - it’s been so long since he’s flown with Toothless, and they have a job to do, but he still feels a rush of joy sweep through him, and can’t help but shriek  _ happiness  _ at the sky. Toothless gives his own answering shriek, looking back at Hiccup and smiling. 

The moment lasts for a minute, and then they sober and wordlessly communicate  _ up  _ to each other in the shift of their bodies, Toothless flying vertically up into the clouds. 

Hiccup hisses  _ challenge  _ to Toothless, chirps and clicks  _ fight-Queen-anger-chase-us.  _ Toothless growls and narrows his eyes at the clouds in front of him, purpose and determination settling into both his and Hiccup’s bodies. 

Toothless folds his wings and dives. 

Yells of  _ Night Fury!  _ and  _ get down!  _ come from the Vikings below them, but Hiccup and Toothless only have eyes for the roaring Queen, as Hiccup feels Toothless’s scales heat with fire and shifts easily with the jerk of his body as the high-pitched whistle culminates in a blast of violet, hitting the Queen’s flank. They sweep over the heat and smoke and soar back up into the sky, the Queen’s angered roar echoing behind them. 

_ Fly,  _ Hiccup chirps at Toothless.  _ Queen-fly-wings-fly-up,  _ he continues, and Toothless rumbles acknowledgment. 

They dive three times, firing at the Queen each time, and on the fourth dive and blast, the Queen shrieks  _ threat  _ and  _ rage  _ and  _ small-worthless-dragons-angry-hurt-you-come- _ **_here_ ** _ ,  _ and Toothless flees to the sky at Hiccup’s click of  _ disappear  _ as the Queen’s wings, ripped with holes, spread and she takes off after them. 

Toothless roars  _ challenge  _ as he flies - no one is faster than them in the sky, and they will not stand for the Queen tormenting the dragons. He vanishes in the clouds, and both Hiccup and Toothless are silent as they circle the Queen when she hovers in the sky, glancing around and whistling  _ confusion _ - _ where? _

_ Here,  _ Toothless shrieks mockingly as he appears from the clouds and fires, turning and vanishing just as quickly as he appeared. 

Hiccup smiles, one hand rubbing Toothless’s scales in  _ triumph,  _ and Toothless gives his own grin, shaking his head and letting his entire body settle back into determination and  _ fight.  _

The second blast sends the Queen into a desperate, scared rage, torching all the sky around her and including Toothless’s prosthetic tail in it. Toothless wavers, but Hiccup presses himself against the saddle and urges him  _ up, up, up,  _ hearing the Queen follow them with wingbeats that stir all the clouds around them. 

They twist and dive when Toothless can’t go any higher, the Queen twisting to follow them, and both Hiccup and Toothless thrum with the energy of the fight, of them flying together as one again. They’re not trapped anymore, not separated and they’re not stuck with Vikings. 

Hiccup shrieks  _ us-win-fight,  _ and Toothless gives his own roar of  _ challenge.  _

And then a low hiss starts, both of them going quiet as they hear the Queen open her mouth, flammable gas building in her jaws as she prepares to fire. 

_ Now! _

Toothless twists at Hiccup’s whistle, the boy tightening his fingers in the loops beneath the saddle and shifting with the jump of Toothless’s body at the quick twist-and-fire, watching the Queen’s eyes widen in shock, and then her body starts erupting into flames from the inside out. 

Toothless feels wind beat against his wings and he follows it, gracelessly yanking himself to the side, and both Hiccup and Toothless hiss  _ desperation  _ as Toothless surges frantically upwards, weaving between the knobs on the Queen’s body in an attempt to escape the rising flames. 

The ball of her tail swings above them, and Hiccup’s eyes widen, a terrified shriek of  _ denial  _ rising in his throat. 

Toothless whimpers, jerking to the side, but Hiccup sees one of the knobs of her tail get closer, can feel himself lifting from the saddle. He shrieks again, just before the tail hits him, and then the last thing he hears is Toothless’s desperate howl of  _ heart-self-love- _ **_Hiccup_ ** as he spins in the air **_,_ ** right before the world goes black and he falls. 

-0-0-0-

Astrid sees Hiccup fall, sees Toothless dive after him, and her body goes cold, her stomach dropping. She gasps, one hand coming to her mouth, and then she sets off into a dead sprint towards where they’re going to land. 


	12. Chapter 12

Hiccup wakes up, and he whines. His head  _ hurts,  _ his entire body  _ hurts,  _ and most of all, there’s no familiar warmth next to him. 

He sits up in the bed -  _ bed? -  _ and his gaze darts around frantically until it lands on a mass of black scales in the corner. Toothless’s head raises instantly, green eyes wide, and when he sees Hiccup he jumps, chirping  _ joy-love-Hiccup  _ as he stands up and launches himself at Hiccup. 

Hiccup laughs, letting Toothless nudge into him as he nuzzles right back, closing his eyes and pressing his face into his warm, familiar, obsidian scales, a low purr rumbling from both of them. 

It’s several moments until he pulls away, and then takes a good look at where he is. 

Still Berk, he notes with an irritated huff as he spots the crest on a piece of armor in the corner, but it’s a bedroom, and not a cell. They’re in some house, empty and small. 

Hiccup sits up, shifting to swing his legs over the bed, and then he notices he can’t  _ feel  _ his left leg. At all. 

Toothless nudges at the blanket with a mournful whine of  _ hurt _ , and Hiccup stares down at the metal prosthetic coming from his leg when he sets his feet down on the wooden floor. 

Hiccup breathes, and then he pushes himself up, bracing one hand on the bedpost. 

One step, and he collapses. Toothless whimpers, nudging his head under Hiccup’s arm to catch him. Hiccup whistles soft  _ gratitude,  _ and Toothless bows his head slightly in acknowledgment. 

The door is locked when they finally make their way over to it, and Hiccup and Toothless both growl. 

Hiccup’s growl gives way to a whimper, sagging slightly against Toothless. They had been  _ free,  _ they had been  _ as one  _ in the skies like they were supposed to, and Berk took that away from them, again. He’s so  _ tired  _ of fighting the Vikings; Hiccup didn’t want any of this, and now they can’t  _ escape  _ it. They’re outnumbered, outmatched, and they can’t fly _ ,  _ they can’t do the one thing they love the most; they’re  _ captives.  _ It goes against everything Hiccup and Toothless are, makes their skin prickle and their blood simmer with hatred. 

Toothless whines, nuzzling into Hiccup, and the boy gives a weak smile, letting Toothless guide him over to the corner he was in and curling up. Hiccup lays down, Toothless moving his tail so Hiccup can prop his prosthetic on it and folding his wing over him, one paw slipping under Hiccup’s head and the others circling around Hiccup, his head bending down to hide him completely. 

Hiccup purrs at the familiar warmth of Toothless and the safety of being hidden in the dark cocoon of his body, leaning up to nuzzle against the underside of Toothless’s jaw and getting a responding purr and nuzzle. 

He relaxes, then, closing his eyes and settling into the warm darkness, feeling Toothless relax in response and curl his tail just slightly closer around Hiccup. 

Hiccup doesn’t sleep, but he drifts, the throbbing pain of his stump fading in the nothingness. Toothless’s body vibrates with a low, steady purr, prompting Hiccup to respond with his own purr occasionally, his body going lax and his mind emptying. Here, he can almost pretend that they’re free, can almost pretend that they’re simply sleeping in their cave in the forest and not in a Viking house. 

It lasts for a time far too short for either of them, when Hiccup is drifting into a deep sleep and Toothless’s eyes snap open at the click of the door latch. The door swings quietly open, Stoick -  _ Viking-alpha  _ to Toothless - appearing in the doorway, and Toothless’s eyes narrow. 

Stoick had apologized, but Hiccup had taught Toothless that apologies are not everything. His apology didn’t make up for everything he did while they were in his prison, didn’t make up for him  _ separating  _ them, something so  _ wrong  _ that Toothless recoils at the simple thought of it, let alone the memory of the agony without his other half. 

So Toothless hisses and growls, moving only to tighten his paws and curl closer around Hiccup, but otherwise he doesn’t disturb his other half. Not unless it’s necessary, because Hiccup is wounded beyond bleeding and Toothless will not wake him and hurt him further. 

Stoick holds his hands out in _peace,_ and Toothless hisses. Stoick doesn’t stop, still moving forward in a half-crouch - that is _Hiccup’s_ half-crouch, Toothless thinks with a low fire of anger rising higher, that is what Hiccup does, _not_ Stoick- _Viking-alpha._

Stoick gets within a foot of Toothless, and the dragon snaps, his teeth closing within an inch of Stoick’s hand as he yells and yanks it back. 

Hiccup stirs, though, whimpering softly as his breath hitches and he shifts in Toothless’s paws. 

Toothless growls at Stoick in retribution for making him wake Hiccup, and then he looks down at his other half. He loosens his paws, allowing a little light in because he knows being trapped in the dark scares Hiccup when he first wakes up, and watches him slowly stir, a mournful warble of  _ sleep again  _ and a light nuzzle into Hiccup’s hair getting a playful smack on his nose and a chirp of  _ no-awake-now.  _

Toothless rolls his eyes and huffs, and then turns his gaze back to Stoick, snapping at him when he sees that the  _ Viking-alpha  _ has tried to get closer. He hisses  _ threat,  _ feeling Hiccup respond to it with a tensing of his body, and glares at Stoick as he retreats quickly. 

Hiccup pokes his head out from underneath Toothless’s wing, seeing Stoick, and he glares as well, despite the sadness in Stoick’s gaze when he looks at him. 

They’re  _ captives  _ again because of him, they’re  _ not-free,  _ and Hiccup wants to fight, he does. 

But he feels Toothless’s warmth next to him and remembers what Stoick did last time Hiccup fought, remembers the cold nights curled alone in the corner of a cell. 

“I want to know your name,” Stoick says. 

Hiccup makes a decision, because he wants to be free and he’s so tired of fighting, he doesn’t want to be away from Toothless and he doesn’t want to  _ hurt  _ anymore. 

It doesn’t mean he’s happy about it, though, and so his glare is filled with vehemence and hatred as he meets Stoick’s eyes. 

“ _ Hiccup,”  _ he hisses bitterly, angrily, watching Stoick’s eyes widen. 

Stoick’s mouth opens and he straightens, backing away in shock. Hiccup glares at him all the while - Stoick stopped being his father eleven years ago, and it’s far too late to start now. 

Stoick looks down at them, shock and despair in his eyes, and Toothless curls tighter around Hiccup. 

“Hiccup,” Stoick breathes, crouching down, and he starts reaching out, eyes shining as tears start welling up. “Gods,  _ Hiccup…” _

Toothless tilts his head, curiously watching Stoick, but his eyes narrow quickly and he swiftly snaps at Stoick’s hands when they get too close and Hiccup shrinks away. 

Stoick pulls his hands back, but he doesn’t take his eyes off of Hiccup, who whimpers  _ fear  _ softly and shifts a little further back into the shadow of Toothless’s wing and body. “That’s why you were so familiar,” Stoick mutters, almost to himself. “I knew I was missing something, but you were with that dragon so much and I couldn’t see past my own anger and uncertainty...”

“I’m so sorry, Hiccup,” Stoick says, focusing back in on them, a few stray tears running down his face now. “I hope… maybe in the future, you can forgive me-“

His eyes widen as Hiccup instantly growls, fierce and harsh.  _ Never-forgive,  _ he hisses, and he  _ means  _ it. Stoick hurt Hiccup in ways unimaginable, both when he was human and not, and it’s a cemented decision that neither Hiccup or Toothless will forgive him for any of it - though… they won’t actively hate him either. 

Stoick’s face falls, but he smooths the expression out and glances down. “I understand,” he says. “I deserve that.”

He looks up again, and then he stands up. “I know you won’t forgive me,” he says. “But I’m not going to hurt you anymore. I promise.”

He turns and leaves, the door open when he does, and they can see the blue sky out from beyond it. Hiccup and Toothless both stare out at it, cautious but both of their hearts leaping with  _ hope  _ at the sight. They’re unsure whether Stoick meant it that way, if he really did mean his promise, but both of them want to leave this house.

A shadow blocks the doorway as they think, resolving itself into Astrid as she slowly walks in, crouching down. She stops a few feet away and doesn’t force herself any closer, and Hiccup feels himself relax slightly, all thoughts of Stoick fleeing his mind. He’s familiar with Astrid, knows that she’ll listen to him when he says  _ no  _ and knows that she can read his boundaries without him saying anything. Astrid won’t hurt him, he knows that now, for certain. 

She gives a small, soft smile. “Hey,” she says quietly. Hiccup’s own lips tilt up into a smile, and he dips his head slightly in shy acknowledgment. 

“Hi,” he replies softly. 

Astrid leans back to sit, but Hiccup makes a protesting whine and he lurches as if to move closer. He doesn’t, still unwilling to move out of the shadow of Toothless, but Astrid takes the hint and moves until she’s a foot away from him - close, but not suffocating, and he can still see the blue sky beyond the door. 

Hiccup relaxes. Toothless rumbles a  _ hello  _ at Astrid, in which she laughs and responds in kind, and he rests his head on his paws, tail lashing once against the floor with a thud. 

“Are you okay?” Astrid asks, glancing to Hiccup’s leg where it’s hidden beneath Toothless’s wing. 

Hiccup shrugs, lips still tilted up into a smile. He can’t help it; he has Astrid here, and he knows she won’t hurt him, knows that she won’t cross his boundaries. He’s forgiven her, and some unexplainable feeling of joy spreads through him, like when him and Toothless are flying together, soaring through the sky and diving and twirling. 

It’s not  _ as  _ good - Hiccup and Toothless’s flight is  _ euphoria,  _ is  _ freedom  _ and  _ life  _ and  _ together-us  _ and like nothing else, but it’s close. 

Toothless’s warmth is next to him, and Astrid is smiling in front of him, and Hiccup feels as if he could stay here forever. He  _ wants  _ to stay here forever. 

-0-0-0-

Astrid glances down, but Hiccup keeps staring, apparently unable to tear his eyes away. He studies the curves and dips of Astrid’s face, her hair as it shines in the sun, her lips and her blue eyes. She can feel his gaze, and she lets him look, an idea slowly forming in her mind.

Impulsively, Astrid leans close, twisting her fingers in the collar of Hiccup’s leather armor and pausing. She feels him jump, sees Toothless’s eyes open from the corner of her vision, but Hiccup doesn’t pull away and doesn’t tense, so she pulls him close, pausing for just a breath before she meets her lips with his, feeling his head tilt to meet hers. 

Of all the touches he’s endured since his capture,  _ hers  _ is the one he melts into, his shoulders dropping down and his fingers skimming feather-light over her hips, tilting his head just that little bit more to get a better angle.

Astrid pulls away first, watching Hiccup sway slightly towards her before he opens his eyes, the bright green slightly glazed, but his full attention is on her. It’s the same sort of draconic interest as if a dragon were preying on her, but on Hiccup, it’s adoring and entirely enamored. She feels as if she’s captured him, with just a touch of lips.

She smiles. “Go,” she says, nodding to Toothless, who’s watching them curiously, deeming her not a threat. “You’ve had enough of Vikings for a month,” she continues, and her smile widens knowingly as right then, he twitches as a group of Vikings walk near the doorway talking, gaze flicking to them briefly, probably what is far too close for his comfort. Hel, the other side of the island is probably still too close for his comfort.

He stays, though, and leans towards her, lips tilting into a small smile. Astrid feels her heart give a traitorous flutter as she realizes that the only reason he’s still here, still  _ talking,  _ is for her. “Not yet,” he says quietly.

She frowns, and Hiccup nods at Toothless’s missing tailfin and his leg. “It hurts.”

Astrid nods, frowning at the fact that they can’t be free, and then Hiccup seems to go limp, sagging and glancing down. Her face shifts to one of concern, leaning forward and hovering her hands over him. “Hiccup? What’s wrong?”

Toothless’s nose nudges Astrid’s back, a worried whine coming from him, and Hiccup looks up at her. 

She feels sympathy flood through her, because Hiccup’s eyes are  _ tired,  _ a dull green glazed with pain and not nearly as bright as they should be, and it unsettles Astrid to see him like this. “Stay,” he whispers softly, almost pleadingly.

Astrid nods and then, without considering consequences, she puts a warning hand on Toothless’s scales before turning to sit and lean back against him. Toothless huffs, but then he sees Hiccup and whimpers, looking at Astrid and deciding to allow it.

Hiccup looks at her, and she pats her crossed legs. “Do you want to lay down?”

He glances down, and Astrid holds her breath as he considers. This is new territory for both of them, and Astrid’s never been able to get this close to Hiccup for so long. He’s never allowed himself to be vulnerable around her.

They weren’t in love, then - or, that’s what she hopes he feels.  _ She  _ feels that, anyway, a feeling of love and protectiveness and adoration so strong that she couldn’t hope to fight it even if she wanted to, which she very, very much does not.

He meets her eyes, and she frowns. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she says quickly, and tries to keep her face from falling when he gives a small shake of his head.

He moves beside her, though, so close they’re almost touching, and sits leaning against Toothless, who purrs and lays his head back down again. Astrid waits, but he doesn’t say anything, and she sits in comfortable silence.

Her curiosity wins out, though, and she speaks quietly into the silence. “So… what now?”

Hiccup shrugs. “I stay here. I can’t leave. Toothless can’t fly, and I can’t walk. I’m defenseless.”

Astrid frowns. She feels the weight of their captivity almost as acutely as they do, and she looks down. “Why don’t you go to the cove and stay there?”

Hiccup leans his head back against Toothless’s scales, closing his eyes. His voice is tinged with bitterness when he speaks next. “I have to remake my sword, and Toothless’s tail. I need the forge.”

Astrid goes quiet. She doesn’t know what to say to that - she has a feeling that Hiccup won’t trust anyone else with the making of his inventions, even her. Not that she’d expect him to trust her at all after what she did, but he seems to be… friendlier with her, at least. 

It’s a few minutes in the silence before she feels a weight on her shoulder, and she turns her head carefully, seeing Hiccup’s mess of auburn hair spread over her shoulder as his head leans against it, eyes closed and face peaceful, breathing even with sleep.

She takes a sharp breath and goes still, eyes widening, and she looks away. Oh, gods, she can’t fuck this up, she  _ can’t- _

He shifts, his brow furrowing as she glances back, and settles against her shoulder again. She takes a breath, and then moves, putting one hand on his back and another on the back of his head. “Hiccup,” she whispers.

He frowns, stirring with a soft hum, and she pushes him gently forwards. “You’ll be more comfortable if you lay down,” she says quietly, practically holding her breath so as not to truly wake him.

There’s a moment of resistance where he pushes back against her, and she hovers her hands over him, not forcing. “Sorry,” she says automatically, face heating. “You don’t have to.” This is all so new - Viking affection is rough and hard, and handling someone like him, with gentleness and care, is not out of her ability, but it’s difficult. His trust is like glass, easily breakable and hard to put back together. 

But she’ll try, for Hiccup. 

He hesitates, green eyes opening just the slightest bit to look down at her lap, and then follows the push blindly after a long moment, laying down with his head on her lap and shifting so his legs are stretched out straight rather than at an angle. Astrid stays perfectly still as he settles, turning his face into the dip between her crossed legs and going still and lax once again.

She exhales, eyes wide and mildly panicking at the fact that she has Hiccup, sleeping with his head in her lap,  _ trusting _ her so blindly even after he’d resisted before. “Oh gods,” she whispers, and she looks down at him, content and peaceful and silent.

Astrid knows then, with certainty, that she will deeply hurt anyone who harms Hiccup, will defend him with her life, and she has a feeling that he will too. 

Toothless purrs, and Astrid’s breath comes a little hysterically as his tail curls around the both of them, his nose nudging Astrid’s side as he lays down. She breathes as evenly as possible, trying not to break this fragile trust that they have in her. 

It’s a few minutes before she realizes the trust isn’t all that fragile, when she unwittingly relaxes into Toothless’s back, and the dragon gives no response other than a light huff of breath. Astrid glances down at Hiccup, then, an idea forming. 

She puts one hand down, lightly setting her fingers in his hair, and he doesn’t shift. She slowly runs a hand through the soft auburn, her breath catching when he stirs and tilts the slightest bit up into the contact. 

“Oh my gods,” she breathes again, her hand stilling to recover from the surrealism of the situation, and Hiccup stirs again, head tilting back to look at her. 

She looks down, meeting green eyes glazed with sleep, utterly trusting of her and almost  _ adoring  _ again, like after she’d kissed him. It makes Astrid’s chest tighten, happiness spreading through her so thoroughly that it almost feels like a pressure inside her. 

Hiccup’s mouth tilts into that crooked half-smile of his - except it’s not  _ half,  _ anymore. There’s a light in his eyes that wasn’t there before when he looked at her, and a sort of unrestrained joy to his smile that she only ever sees when he looks at or plays with Toothless. 

She can’t help but smile back, and it’s only when Hiccup’s brow furrows and a slight worried frown appears on his lips that her face shifts to concern. 

He pauses, though, long enough that Astrid gets the sense his verbal limit is coming up soon, if not already passed. He’s done talking to humans for the day, and it’s a sign of his trust and favor - Astrid  _ wants _ to believe it's love - that he is still talking to her. 

“Will you stay?” he asks, so soft she may not have heard it if she wasn’t already listening. 

Astrid nods. “Yes, I’ll stay. I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

He nods to himself, but his frown only grows deeper, his body tensing as he looks back up at her. “Astrid?”

She meets his gaze, filled with uncertainty and fear and a little bit of hope, lit behind the green. 

He gives a quiet whistle, something like a coo and a purr, and the tone of it makes Astrid force herself to breathe normally, biting back a gasp. 

It’s almost unmistakable what he’s trying to say, even in a dragon language, and it makes Astrid’s entire body go warm, her heart beating fast inside her chest and the pressure of her joy almost suffocating. 

_ Love-you,  _ Hiccup had said, and his face heats when he realizes what he did. Annoyance darkens his gaze at her smile and he turns his face away, back into the dip between her crossed legs where he’d been laying before. 

Astrid puts one hand on his hair. “I love you, too, Hiccup,” she says in response, and feels him tense before relaxing, going completely pliant and settling into his position with his head in her lap. 

She runs her hand through his hair as he lays entirely still, not twitching when Vikings walk by out of the door or making any sort of protesting noise. Rather, she notices with quiet surprise and joy, he starts  _ purring,  _ a low, rumbling noise similar to what Toothless makes. 

She keeps going, the purr gradually dying as he fades into sleep, and she absently starts a small braid in the back of his hair. 

She doesn’t notice the form blocking the light from the door until there’s a shocked gasp and both her and Toothless look up, eyes narrowed. 

Snotlout stands in the doorway, staring at the two of them and Toothless, and he opens his mouth with much more intent than simple surprise, brow furrowing and his thoughts reading plainly on his face. 

Astrid’s eyes narrow further and she glares at him, murder in her eyes. If he dares to disturb Hiccup, she will make his death slow and painful. 

“Snotlout,” she says, in a soft voice but with a tone hard as steel, and his eyes widen slightly at the obvious threat. “Go outside, now, and don’t say  _ anything  _ about this, to  _ anyone.  _ Got it?”

Snotlout frowns, his thoughts resolving even more obviously as his mouth opens wider, and her glare gets fiercer. 

“ _ Snotlout,”  _ she hisses. “I will break every single bone in your body,  _ slowly _ , if you say anything that offends these two, or wakes him up. Get  _ out _ , and don’t say a word.”

He closes his mouth, gaze going flat with how unimpressed and petulant he is about it, but Astrid doesn’t care. She will not let him wake Hiccup up for his stupid antics, not after it took so long for Hiccup to trust her enough to do this. 

Hiccup stirs then, a soft whimper escaping him, his brows creasing slightly. Astrid turns her gaze from him, back up to Snotlout, her fiery blue eyes harsh and cold, conveying just how slow and painful his death will be if Hiccup does wake up. 

Snotlout’s eyes widen and he holds his hands up in surrender, slowly backing away and out the door. She catches him roll his eyes before he turns away, mouth moving with some comment that Astrid couldn’t care less about. 

Of course, Stoick comes in next, barely making it through the door without shaking the entire house, and he stops dead in the doorway, eyes wide as he stares at her, Hiccup, and Toothless. 

“By the gods, Astrid,” he breathes - still too loud, as Hiccup’s crease grows deeper and he shifts again, a frustrated whine coming from him as he tries settling back into sleep. 

“ _ Chief,”  _ she hisses in low admonishment, not a slow death like she did Snotlout, but rather a very fierce plea for him to not wake Hiccup up. She may be reckless already in admonishing the Chief of Berk of all people, but she does have  _ some  _ restraint.

Stoick crouches down, staring at Hiccup as he sleeps, and then back up at Astrid. “How?” he mouths, and Astrid winces. He doesn’t know the full story yet, of her meetings with him over the past two and a half months.

She shakes her head. “Later,” she replies quietly, and Stoick frowns, but he nods and stands up, slowly backing out of the room.

Astrid looks back down at Hiccup and sighs, then starts her rhythm through his hair again.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> final chapter, delayed by a day because I was tired and didn't feel like posting
> 
> also, poll for an epilogue?
> 
> and last thing - a lot of people have been asking about Hiccup and Gobber. there’s no interaction between them now, but - and this is for the people who’ve been asking about a sequel - I’m considering a sequel, which there will be interaction between them. and since people are so interested, I might do an epilogue too, which would possibly mean interaction between them.

“I had been meeting with him for two and a half months,” Astrid says, to Stoick’s ever-darkening face. She forces her voice steady despite his intimidating posture - this is something she will not apologize for, no matter if it means she’s exiled from the tribe. “He told me his name on the third meeting, and Toothless’s on the fourth. The fifth meeting, Hiccup was gone, and Toothless allowed me to ride him to save him from a fleet of ships of what looked like dragon trappers. I didn’t stick around to find out.”

Stoick sighs and sits heavily down in his chair, then he looks back up at Astrid. There’s a weariness in his eyes, then, a long-held regret and sorrow for something that echoes in his voice when he speaks next.

“Do you know the Ghost of Berk, Astrid?”

She frowns. “It’s a children’s story. All of the tribe’s lost children, from doing something reckless and getting themselves killed, formed into one ghost that haunts Berk and looks for children who don’t do what their parents tell them to.” She shakes her head. “Why is this important?”

Stoick looks down. “The Ghost of Berk isn’t a ghost, Astrid. He’s real, and he’s my son. Hiccup Haddock the Third.”

“Your son was a runt, Chief,” she says back just as quickly. “He was exiled as a child - if anything, he’ll appear as some foreigner come here to negotiate or trade with us, if he lived and did well.”

Stoick shakes his head, and Astrid pushes away the thought creeping at the edges of her consciousness. It’s not  _ possible.  _

“Gobber and I planned to keep Hiccup on Berk, alive. He was never sent away on that ship.” He sighs quietly. “I raised him on Berk, keeping him hidden from all of you. The night of a dragon raid, he went out on his own and shot down that Fury of his. He was eight years old, and I didn’t believe him.” Stoick gives a bitter breath of a laugh. “He’d been completely useless up to that point in dragon hunting - of all the things my son was, a dragon killer wasn’t one of them.”

Astrid watches, her heart falling, as Stoick slumps slightly. “I sent him away that night. I didn’t listen, and I sent him away. I never saw him again, and I’ve regretted that for eleven years.” Another harsh, bitter laugh. “He would’ve been in your dragon training class.”

Astrid thinks of Hiccup, and then she thinks of him in a dragon training class, being chased by vicious dragons, and she finds she can’t picture it. Now, though, she understands so much more than she did before - Hiccup’s aversion to Berk, to Vikings; how much he knew. And why it took so long for him to forgive her; she’d locked him in the place that had betrayed him, with his  _ father _ that had betrayed him, and he hadn’t known whether she would leave him there or if she’d follow through with her promise. Looking back at it, Astrid can see Hiccup’s uncertainty now, when he looked at her like he  _ wanted _ to trust her, when he almost reached out for her that one time. Hiccup had been trying, had been conflicted between her and his image of Berk’s Vikings, a hard-learned lesson versus the way she’d ignored that lesson when she’d tried befriending him.

She looks up at Stoick as he speaks again, broken out of her thoughts. 

“And now… I didn’t even know he was my son. I did things to him, Astrid. I kept him in the prisons, I separated him from that dragon. I just… didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t going to kill a teenage boy, but I couldn’t let him leave and possibly bring a force to attack us.” Stoick sighs. “He doesn’t forgive me, and I don’t think he ever will.”

Astrid looks down, considering, and then she looks back up. “He may not forgive you now, but I know Hiccup. He’s not someone who holds a grudge. You can still rebuild your relationship with him, and it may not be forgiveness, but it’ll be better than what it is now.”

Stoick nods slowly, and he looks back up at Astrid, eyes shining with tears that he wipes away quickly. “Thank you, Astrid.” He smiles. “You’d make a good chief. I don’t suppose Hiccup is interested in the job anymore.”

She laughs. “I don’t think he was ever interested, and to be honest, Chief… it’s an honor, but not me. I’m a warrior, not a chief.”

Stoick nods. “Yeah, you always were a fighter,” he says, almost wistfully, and then he stands up, his posture and tone returned to his usual gruffness. “You should go check on Hiccup,” he says, with just the slightest waver in his voice when he does so. 

Astrid hesitates, and Stoick catches onto it immediately. “Astrid? What’s wrong?”

She looks down, not meeting his eyes, and then silently steels herself and raises her chin, meeting Stoick’s concerned gaze and keeping her voice perfectly steady. “I want to cancel the marriage with Snotlout.”

Stoick frowns. “That was your parent’s decision, not me, Astrid. I can’t simply make that decision on my own. The Hofferson clan wants respect and power, and they’re looking for that by marrying you into the Jorgensens.”

Astrid frowns. “I don’t care what my parents want. I should be able to make my own decisions and not be married only out of a hunger for power. And besides,” she gives a small smile and looks down, “isn’t being married to the chief’s son all the respect and power the clan needs?”

Stoick’s eyes widen. “Astrid, you didn’t-”

She shakes her head frantically. “No, not yet, of course not. We’re not ready for that,  _ he’s  _ not ready for that, but- maybe in a couple years, we’ll be okay with it. And I don’t want to marry the Jorgensen clan for power if it means I can marry Hiccup for love.”

Stoick stares down at her, and then his face softens. “I want you to marry for love too, Astrid.” He sighs. “I will talk to the clan leaders, and I will try to make them see sense. But,” his face grows sterner as Astrid starts smiling, “there are no guarantees.”

Astrid nods, feeling as if she’s going to burst with the happiness spreading through her, and she can’t help the smile that breaks out across her face. “Thank you, Chief.”

Stoick smiles and nods. “You’re welcome. And, Astrid?”

She turns from where she had started walking towards the door, eyebrows raised in question.

“I will be calling a tribe meeting at the end of this week. Can you make sure Hiccup is there?”

Her face softens, and she smiles. “I will, Chief.”

Stoick nods, and Astrid turns and walks out of the house, new hope lighting in her.

-0-0-0-

The Great Hall is loud when Astrid and Hiccup walk in, with Hiccup staying close to Astrid and standing tense, twitching at every sound and movement. Astrid stays close, but not touching, knowing that even her touch is too much for him right now. Her being close is what he needs, and  _ all  _ he needs.

“I don’t like this,” he whispers quietly, glancing back at the door. Toothless is outside on the roof, listening in through one of the windows, and Hiccup’s gaze darts around quickly.

Astrid leads him over to one of the back corners that are less crowded and hidden in shadow. “I know,” she says back, and his eyes flick to her, fear and panic in them. “It’s not for long, I promise. Just stay for a little bit, and if it becomes too much, you can leave. But hear Stoick out first.”

Hiccup’s gaze flicks down as he glares at the floor, a quiet growl leaving him before he speaks. “I don’t want to do anything for him.”

Astrid sighs. “You’re not doing this for him, you’re doing this for me. Okay? For me, Hiccup. And if you don’t want to ever talk to him, or come back to Berk again, that’s fine. But I need you here, just for this one night.”

Hiccup looks back up at her, gaze softening, and his shoulders slump in acquiescence. He nods. “For you, Astrid.”

She smiles and then turns to the raised platform as Stoick turns to the crowd and everyone hushes quickly. Hiccup steps closer to her, arm brushing against hers and his fingers skimming against her palm. She quietly interlaces her fingers with his and squeezes lightly, feeling him relax beside her and squeeze back.

“People of Berk,” Stoick starts, “I know we’ve all gone through a bit of a change recently. The dragons moving in has been quite a surprise,” he gets a mixture of laughter and discontented grumbling about that, “but it’s not over yet. There are more surprises, but these ones are all good, I promise.”

The crowd murmurs quietly, falling silent as Stoick takes a breath to continue. Hiccup’s grip tightens on her fingers and Astrid leans just a little into him, feeling him slowly exhale and forcibly relax himself.

“I want to start with the marriage between Snotlout of the Jorgensen clan and Astrid of the Hofferson clan,” Stoick says, and Astrid holds her breath. She feels Hiccup tense even more beside her, glancing over at her, but she doesn’t pay attention. All of her focus is locked on Stoick, and the chief finds her in the back, his gaze almost meeting hers.

“The arranged marriage has been cancelled. This has been agreed upon by both clan leaders.”

Astrid feels three gazes on her then: Hiccup’s, with worry changing to happiness as Stoick finishes, Stoick’s, with happiness as he announces it, and Snotlout’s, with annoyance and frustration. The crowd around them murmurs with discontent at this obvious change, while some others are celebrating quietly with her.

She turns to Hiccup, who’s giving a small smile, and he nods. Astrid grins, understanding his nod for what it is even though he may be past verbal interaction right now - a congratulation, and a promise that he won’t make her regret that decision. Not that Astrid thinks she could ever regret the decision of cancelling the marriage, even if she hadn’t met Hiccup, but now she has even more, and an infinitely more precious, reason to cancel it.

She turns back to the platform as Stoick continues with his next announcement, feeling Hiccup lean slightly into her. She squeezes his hand and gets a light squeeze in return, and her lips tilt up in a small smile at the gesture. 

“I would also like to apologize to you all,” Stoick says. “I am sure you all know about my son, who was exiled as a child.”

The crowd murmurs general agreement with a wary edge to it, and Stoick gives a long sigh. “He was not sent away until he was eight years old,” he says heavily.” I raised him here on Berk, and when he went out during a dragon raid, I exiled him for his own safety, thinking it too risky to let him stay in a village of Vikings who wanted him dead.”

Hiccup gives a soft growl from next to her, tensing up, and Astrid looks at him. “Hiccup,” she says quietly. 

He breaks his glare at Stoick to look at her, eyes notably softer, and he sighs, giving a small nod before turning back to the platform. Astrid watches him for a moment longer, unease at his reaction settling in her at the way he’s still tensed up and his look at Stoick is nowhere near friendly. 

The crowd around them is shocked silent, and the first yell comes from somewhere among the Jorgensen clan. “Damn right! He’s a runt!” someone yells. Hiccup looks down and he hunches his shoulders up slightly. Astrid can practically feel his urge to bolt, to get out of here as fast as possible and go to Toothless. 

He stays, though, and she rubs her thumb slowly over the back of his hand, watching him still and tilt his head slightly to focus on the movement. He slowly relaxes, giving a grateful glance up at Astrid. She smiles back, and he raises his chin and looks back up at the platform, both of them tuning back into the conversation. 

“He’s a child!” someone else yells, a woman, and a man across the Hall looks in her direction, anger on his face. 

“He was a runt! He shouldn’t be treated any differently than every other runt who gets sent off to sea!”

“You’ve never raised a child!”

The bickering continues for several more minutes, the noise level gradually rising and the crowd clearly splitting into two sides. 

Stoick slams his hand on the table. “ _ Enough!” _

All of Berk goes silent, turning up to Stoick, and Astrid keeps rubbing Hiccup’s hand as he flinches, curling into himself. 

“I have made the decision already,” Stoick says, voice firm. “I will not apologize for saving my son. I only apologize for lying to my people. But Hiccup is back with us now,” and the crowd breaks into murmurs of disbelief and incredulous questions at that. “The night of the dragon raid, when I sent him away, he shot down a Night Fury. Instead of taking the ship I prepared off the island, he made friends with the beast, and two and a half months ago Astrid found him in Berk’s woods.”

Stoick pauses as the crowd turns to look at Hiccup, standing in the corner with Astrid, and he stills at their combined gazes. Astrid feels his hand slip out of hers as he takes a step away, looking at her with wide eyes, fear and panic obvious in them. He makes a quiet, involuntary noise that sounds like a whine, glancing back at the crowd. 

“He has been with dragons for eleven years,” Stoick continues, and Hiccup visibly flinches. Astrid reaches out and he steps away, giving a minute shake of his head. 

“My son is not fit for running the village, simply because he is more dragon than human. I do not have an heir, but I have a son, and I will not let him be exiled again. I made that mistake once. I will not do it again.”

Astrid tunes out of the yelling that follows as the crowd turns back to Stoick and Hiccup is trembling slightly. She steps forward and around Hiccup, turning and gesturing him to follow her. “Come,” she says, and he looks up quickly, meeting her gaze. 

She leads him slowly along the edges of the crowd and out the door, bringing him around the side of the Great Hall and standing in front of him. His breaths are coming fast, too fast, and his hands are shaking, and he drops to the ground in that half-crouch of his. 

She goes down with him, crouching in front of him and keeping her voice soft, ignoring Toothless’s concerned warble from above her. “Hiccup,” she says, and his too-wide eyes snap up to her. “Breathe. In, and out. In, out.”

She reaches forward slowly, skimming her fingers along his wrist. When he doesn’t react, she loosely curls her fingers around and pulls his hand to her chest, pressing it against her heartbeat. “Match it to mine. In, and out.” She drags her breathing down to be slow as well, shoving down her own fear and panic at seeing Hiccup like this, and she watches him try to follow the directions. 

“You’re safe,” she says. “We’re outside. Toothless is next to you,” and she sees Hiccup give a small smile. Curiously, Toothless doesn’t attempt to touch Hiccup, and she wonders if the dragon knows Hiccup’s having a panic attack and that he doesn’t like to be touched during it - and, most importantly, whether Hiccup has had them before. 

“No one is going to hurt you,” she whispers softly, watching the relaxation travel in increments down his body and through his breathing. 

Of course, she’s proved wrong seconds later, as the Hall door slams and Hiccup flinches, breaths speeding up. 

“Hey, Astrid,” Tuffnut says from behind her. “You left pretty quickly, so we thought-“

He cuts off, eyes widening as Astrid twists and throws her axe close enough to feel the wind on his ear. Ruffnut freezes beside him, eyes wide as she looks at her brother. 

“I swear to Thor, do  _ not  _ finish that sentence, Tuffnut,” she hisses. The twins raise their hands in surrender, and Astrid turns back to Hiccup. 

He’s mostly calm, but his gaze still flicks up to the twins. Astrid puts herself in his vision, catching his eyes and keeping them on her. “Hiccup,” she says again, softly. The Hall door opens and closes again, but she doesn’t turn, hearing the low murmur of the twins commenting to whoever’s come out. 

Hiccup closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, nodding slowly after a long moment. His hands are still a little shaky, but he opens his eyes and he looks decidedly less panicked than before, green gaze clear and steady. 

“You’re back with me?” she asks, and Hiccup nods again. She smiles, standing up and stepping back, letting Toothless push his nose under Hiccup’s hand with a worried whine. 

She turns to the twins - and Snotlout, and Fishlegs, who are standing next to the twins and watching them. 

“Woah,” Ruffnut says, staring at Hiccup as he stands in the curve of Toothless’s body, the dragon’s tail curled around the boy and Hiccup half-crouching, a hand on Toothless’s scales. He’s obviously on the defensive, gaze darting between all of their faces. 

Astrid glances between the two groups. “Guys, this is Hiccup,” she says slowly, gesturing to Hiccup, and then she gestures at her friends. “Hiccup, this is Snotlout, Fishlegs, and the twins Ruffnut and Tuffnut.”

The twins, Snotlout, and Fishlegs only stare, while Hiccup gives a small dip of his head in acknowledgment. Snotlout turns away first, huffing and crossing his arms. 

“He tried to kill me. Twice. Him  _ and  _ his dragon,” he says petulantly. 

Astrid rolls her eyes. “You tried to kill him,  _ and  _ his dragon,” she repeats mockingly. Snotlout glares at her, then turns away, but she can see him sneaking looks from the corner of his eye. 

Fishlegs makes an excited squeal. “Ooh, I want to talk to him!” He looks at Astrid. “Can I talk to him?”

She gives him a flat look. “He’s a person, Fishlegs. He can understand everything you’re saying. I’m not his  _ handler.” _

Fishlegs looks briefly chastised, and then he turns back to Hiccup. “I saw your notes in my Book of Dragons,” he says excitedly, and Astrid wonders if he stole that from her room. Hiccup tilts his head curiously. “There’s so much we don’t know! And I’m sure that’s not all, I mean you’ve been  _ everywhere,  _ haven’t you? There’s more than that book, right? What else do you know?”

Hiccup presses slightly back into Toothless at the incessant questions and Fishlegs’ rising excitement, and Astrid intervenes when he glances to her and Toothless hisses softly. 

“Not now, Fishlegs. He’s not having a good night. Maybe later,” she says. Fishlegs deflates slightly, but he nods, the excitement on his face not dying at all. 

The twins keep watching, and Astrid waits expectantly for whatever inane comment they’ll come up with this time. 

Ruffnut tilts her head. “So, you ride a dragon?” she asks, a note of confusion to her voice. 

Hiccup frowns and nods. Tuffnut’s face brightens and he walks forward quickly, his hand reaching out. 

“You tamed a Night Fury! Can I touch it? It’s so dark, and mysterious-“

Astrid doesn’t have time to step in before Hiccup and Toothless both growl. Tuffnut’s sentence cuts off in a yell as Toothless fires at his feet, scorching the grass and throwing him back several feet. Toothless hisses and curls tighter around Hiccup, who shrinks into his shadow, eyes flicking to Astrid. 

She ignores Tuffnut’s comments of how hurt he is and steps forward, turning to the gang. “You can talk to him later. Go back inside the Great Hall.”

Snotlout is first, glaring at the both of them, and the twins pout. Fishlegs watches Hiccup and Toothless, a questioning noise coming from him. Astrid glares at him and Fishlegs nods quickly, turning and fleeing inside the building. 

“It’s a Night Fury, Astrid!” Tuffnut whines. Ruffnut pouts with him, both of them attempting to give her pleading looks. 

Astrid stares flatly back. “Go inside.”

The twins slump, annoyance showing on their faces. “Always killing the fun, Astrid,” Tuffnut mutters as he turns. 

Ruffnut nods. “Fun-killer,” she replies, and Astrid rolls her eyes before turning back to Hiccup. 

He stands up slightly and Toothless uncurls a little from his position to allow Astrid to step forward. She smiles, never taking for granted how she’s the only one allowed to get close to them, and doesn’t try to touch Hiccup, knowing that he’s most likely past his limit for both contact and verbal interaction for today. 

Except, somewhere along the line, Astrid got excluded from those limits, and she feels her heart swell as he hesitates before deciding to step closer. He reaches out, hand landing gently on her hip - not moving or holding, simply resting, as if he wants to make sure she’s there, and he opens his mouth. His voice is quiet, and Astrid smiles reassuringly at him. 

“How did you get the marriage cancelled?”

She brings her hand up to touch his arm where he reaches out. “Let’s not worry about that right now,” she says softly. “For now,” she smiles and shrugs, “looks like it’s just us.”

Hiccup looks between Toothless and Astrid, his eyes lighting up with a soft glow and mouth tilting up into a small smile. “Always,” he says to both of them. Astrid rubs Toothless’s scales as well, the dragon rumbling a contented purr, and then she looks back at Hiccup, meeting his gaze. 

Hiccup glances away, his fingers tightening in a minute movement on her hip as he hesitates, and Astrid tilts her head in question. 

“Hiccup, what is-“

Her sentence is cut off when Hiccup looks back at her, a fiery determination in his green eyes even in the night, and his arm curls around her waist, pulling her close and tilting his head to meet his lips with hers. 

She feels him relax when she responds to the kiss, melting into her returned hold, and a soft noise of contentment escapes from him during it. 

He pulls back, his breath warm against her skin. “Thank you, Astrid,” he whispers, and she can’t help the smile that spreads across her face, wide and bright as she looks at him. She sees hesitation still in his eyes, a sort of fear and doubt that he’s doing this wrong, but she only smiles, reassuring and warm. 

He steps back, pulling entirely away. She doesn’t blame him for it - even she is a part of the Viking tribe, and therefore he has limits as to how much he can touch and talk to her. She will cherish all the time he gives her, extended as it is. 

He turns and mounts Toothless. There’s no saddle - he’ll be stuck on Berk for a while making a new one at the forge, along with his flaming sword, but that doesn’t mean he’ll be forced to stay in the village. 

“You’ll be at the cove?” she asks. 

Hiccup nods, a small smile on his face. She smiles back, then looks at Toothless, who gives his own gummy dragon-smile and a low purr and chirp of happiness. 

She glances back to Hiccup. “See you later, Hiccup,” she says, and watches his smile grow that little bit wider. 

“Bye, Astrid.”

Toothless turns and starts running, disappearing into the night. Astrid watches them leave until she can’t see them anymore, and then she turns and walks back into the Great Hall to see how the rest of the village took the news - hopefully well, after Stoick made peace, but who knows. 


	14. epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the epilogue you all asked for, the gobber-hiccup interaction you all asked for, slight stoick & hiccup, and hiccstrid fluff.
> 
> i present to you all: one (1) dork.

Astrid waits in the cove, sharpening her axe. Stormfly is nearby, examining her reflection in the clear water of the lake, grooming herself as she does. The sunlight reflects off of her scales, glints off the edge of the axe Astrid sharpens.

It’s been two months since Hiccup rebuilt his sword and Toothless’s tail and both of them left to be away from Vikings for a while. Astrid doesn’t blame them; she knows that Hiccup is not adjusted to life with humans, and Berk hasn’t given him the best memories. She knows he’ll come back for her, and that’s all she needs.

Hiccup told her that he’d be back in a month or so, and Astrid had waited for a month before starting to visit the cove twice a week for three weeks. The fourth week, she’d started visiting three times a week, and now into the first week of the third month, she’s visiting every day.

No, she doesn’t blame them, but she misses them. She misses  _ Hiccup. _

She hears wingbeats above her, a familiar roar, and Astrid breaks into a grin, looking up as Toothless dives down, landing in the cove, giving his dragon-smile at her with a happy rumble. Hiccup, pressed against the saddle and barely noticeable until he straightens, jumps down and smiles at her, starting to walk towards her.

He glances towards Stormfly - Astrid pretends she doesn’t see the glance. Hiccup had barely relented on letting  _ her  _ train Stormfly, let alone Fishlegs, Snotlout, and the twins, not trusting Vikings in the least, and even now he can’t help but make sure that Stormfly is happy. She knows he has a much deeper bond with dragons than she does, having spent eleven years being practically raised by one. She can see it now, as he walks towards her and Toothless follows beside him, both of them swaying with the steps of the other so they don’t bump into each other, and when Hiccup stops Toothless stops, his tail curving in a wide circle around Hiccup almost naturally. 

She sets the axe down and stands up, walking forward, Hiccup straightening from his slight crouch. He’d told her he’d try to walk more like a Viking when in Berk, if only because she’d told him it would lessen the stares he got, but with her and every other time the majority of Vikings can’t see him, he’s in that draconic half-crouch. Astrid doesn’t mind; it’s part of who Hiccup is, through no fault of his own, and she finds it kind of adorable. Besides, she’d be a terrible girlfriend if she tried to separate Hiccup from his draconic traits, or from Toothless. She’s pretty sure she’d get incinerated, by Toothless, Hiccup’s sword Inferno, or simply verbally.

Hiccup smiles and pulls her close, kissing her softly until she pulls away, breathless and grinning. She loves meeting him like this - one of his other draconic traits is touch. Dragons communicate love through touch, and so does he; by kissing her, by holding her close, by just brushing his fingers along her arm or her hip or her leg. Considering how he interacts with every other Viking, she doesn’t need the blessings of Odin or Freya if she has this blessing from Hiccup.

“I missed you,” Astrid says, a slight frown to her tone. She loves meeting him, but a full two months is a little far, even for him. Not without talking about it beforehand, and especially when they had just gotten into their relationship - though she feels like she’s known him forever.

His smile fades and he glances down. “I missed you too. I’m sorry, I just-” he runs a hand through his hair anxiously, “-it was all too much, and I needed to leave. I should’ve told you how long beforehand.”

“Yes, you should’ve. Or visited me between,” Astrid says firmly, and then her face softens and she puts a hand under his chin, lifting it so he meets her eyes. She smiles. “But I’m not going to begrudge you your time away. I know you’d go insane if you had to stay in a village of Vikings for months on end, especially after what they did to you. What  _ I  _ did to you.”

He pulls back, but his fingers trail down her arm until they reach her wrist and curl loosely around, as if subconsciously, and she smiles at the lingering touch as he starts pulling her to a nearby rock, sitting down and leaning against her when she sits beside him. 

“I don’t blame you for that,” he starts, glancing over at her. “I know how Berk can be, and I’m not exactly the friendliest person they could’ve found. Especially with Toothless,” he says, and they both glance up to see Toothless rolling with Stormfly, batting playfully at her tail until it flicks and the spines stick straight out. Toothless yelps and flinches back, shaking his head and glaring without heat at Stormfly before pouncing on her. Stormfly chirps and slips out from underneath, standing up and giving small, playful jumps, lashing her tail. Toothless bows and lashes his own tail, growling in short, nonthreatening bursts. Stormfly raises her chin and Toothless’s paw flicks out, claw grazing along the underside of her chin. Stormfly drops with a chirp of pleasure and Toothless laughs, looking back at Hiccup for approval of the move he learned from him.

Hiccup smiles at Toothless, who turns back and meets Stormfly’s counter-attack, and then Hiccup’s smile fades. “They would’ve killed him,” he says quietly, and he looks back at Astrid. “You did your best to save both of us.”

Astrid smiles, feeling a weight lift off her shoulders. She’d told him the whole story during the week he’d rebuilt his sword and Toothless’s tail; everything she’d done, said, everything she’d lied about and what she was planning. Hiccup had smiled and said he’d forgiven her, but he hadn’t talked about it much, and she’d lived with the remaining guilt and uncertainty for all the time he’d been gone.

She leans in to give him a short kiss. “You two are plenty friendly. The unholy offspring of lightning and death likes to play with your prosthetic like it’s a stick,” she starts untying the rope and his eyes widen in realization; she smirks, “and you set the forge on fire.”

He tries to stop her, hands moving down to retie the rope, but she bats them away and pulls the prosthetic off with a victorious grin. “Astrid-”

She throws the leg to the two dragons, above Hiccup’s reaching hand, and he groans. “I need that to walk!”

Astrid laughs and slips her arm around his waist, pulling him in for a long kiss. “And now you’re trapped with me. What a tragedy,” she says sarcastically when she pulls away, smiling.

Hiccup grins. “I’m truly suffering,” he replies, deadpan, and she laughs and kisses him again.

-0-0-0-

Hiccup walks to the forge the next day, sticking in the shadows of the Viking buildings and slipping in unnoticed. He’d agreed to sleep with Astrid in her house at night, with Toothless safe in the cove, but that was as far as he’d go. Astrid was an exception; she’s the only Viking he feels truly comfortable with, and the only reason he’d agreed to stay in Berk at all. Before her, he’d been planning on leaving permanently soon, having stolen from the Berk forge and enhanced his designs enough to be able to survive by himself away from Berk, to get past Berserker and Outcast Island. That was what his plan had been when he left after Astrid had tried to get him to come back to Berk, and, well. That hadn’t exactly turned out well for him.

He slips inside quietly, closing the shutters and the open windows in the forge until he’s left completely alone, lighting the dark forge by a few candles and the machinery as he lights the fires of those and starts pulling out pieces of metal and other tools, lining them up to the sketches in his notebook and starting his new project - a shield that doubles as a crossbow and a bola.

He doesn’t know how long he works there, immersing himself in his invention, improving it as he goes and fixing the measurements when things don’t work. It’s faster now that he has free access to the forge and doesn’t have to steal from it, and though he’s fully against every other part of Berk, the forge is familiar and the one place he was allowed freely. It hasn’t changed much in eleven years, and he knows where everything is, his small area of the forge more organized, but the notes and sketches he’d made as a kid are still preserved. Gobber had taught him here, hidden just like he is now, with every window and door closed and locked, his area scattered with notes and pieces and tools.

Hiccup didn’t lock the doors, though, and he looks quickly up at the main door as the latch clicks, his hands stilling on the shield. A familiar humming comes from beyond the wood as it swings open and sunlight streams through. Gobber steps in, closing the door, and then he frowns, turning around. “Wonder why I’m closing the-”

He stops when he looks up, seeing Hiccup, and his eyes widen. “Oh,” he says eloquently. “That’s why.”

Hiccup’s body is tense, ready to flee, shield be damned. He doesn’t blame Gobber for what Stoick did - he couldn’t exactly protest - and he actually feels closer to him than the rest of Berk, having had him as a surrogate father for the first eight years of his life, and he wasn’t the one who had exiled him.

But he’s not Astrid, and he’s still a Viking of Berk.

It’s a long moment before Gobber starts walking forward, over to his rack of spare hands. “Ye know, ye don’t need to close the doors anymore,” he says, as if Hiccup being in the forge is entirely normal. He supposes it is, but not after eleven years, not after the past year, and yet Gobber isn’t making any kind of big deal about it.

It’s kind of… refreshing.

“Ye’re a Viking, now,” Gobber says, and Hiccup gives a quiet growl involuntarily. Gobber glances back, then back to his work. “Okey, not a Viking,” he amends, casually, and Hiccup’s body relaxes, mind focusing on analyzing this new reaction to him being here. No questions, no curious glances or disdainful looks or even glares, just… acceptance. 

“But ye’re not exiled anymore, Hiccup,” Gobber continues, turning around and facing him. “If ye’re anything like the boy I taught eleven years ago, ye’re going to be in this forge a lot. Well, when ye’re not flying off wherever.”

He’s accepting Toothless too, Hiccup thinks, and he starts to think that Gobber is safe. He’s a Viking he can talk to, can trust. Not as much as Astrid, nowhere near as much as Astrid, but more than the rest of Berk gets.

“Mah point is, it’ll be a lot easier to do things with more light than just those few candles. It was hard enough teaching ye that way, no reason for ye to torment yerself further.” Gobber’s turned back to his work again, not looking at him, and Hiccup finds it somehow easier that way.

He frowns. “I don’t want to,” he says quietly. 

Gobber nods. “Alrighty then. Mind telling me what ye’re working on? I’m sure it’s something new. Ye always had new inventions back in the day.”

Hiccup pauses, glancing down at the metal under his hands. “A shield.” He hesitates before continuing. “It doubles as a crossbow and a bola.”

“As long as it keeps ye safe out there. I don’t want ye to get hurt.”

That’s new. None of the other Vikings have said they want him to be safe, and Astrid - well, he knows she wants it. She doesn’t have to say it.

Hiccup glances down, feeling a slight warmth spread through him, and he nods. “It will.”

He turns back to his shield, starting work on it again, and he and Gobber work in a strange sort of relaxed peace, quiet as they move around each other and trade machines to use. He notices Gobber glancing at his designs, and oddly, Hiccup doesn’t mind. He just looks back at his work and stays quiet.

-0-0-0-

Hiccup meets Stoick on the fourth day. He knew he wouldn’t be able to avoid him for the entire week he planned on staying, but… he had hoped. 

Stoick’s many attempts at catching him alone were difficult to avoid in a town that he could walk freely in and Hiccup refused to go anywhere but six feet away from any nearby Viking, though, and he sighs when he hears Stoick call his name hopefully from behind him.

Hiccup glances at the forest, calculating if he’ll be able to escape and still have plausible denial that he heard him, but Stoick’s voice is far too loud to say that, and he’s right behind him anyway. He turns around slowly, meeting Stoick’s eyes as he crouches down to Hiccup’s level, body tense and not concealing the wariness in his eyes.

Stoick, on his part, doesn’t try to get closer or touch Hiccup, and he puts that towards his mental tally of trusting him a little more.

“Hiccup,” Stoick says, quieter. Hiccup nods in acknowledgment, and Stoick’s face falls slightly.

He seems to accept it, though, because he continues without pushing for a verbal answer. “I wanted to say…” he trails off, frowning a little as he thinks of what to say. “Sorry,” he adds suddenly. “And… that your room is- is still there, with all your stuff. That you didn’t take, uh, when I- well, you know.”

Stoick is  _ shy,  _ face going slightly red as he glances down at the ground and stumbles slightly over his words, the same way Hiccup does. It takes him off guard, and he tilts his head a little. He nods, seeing Stoick’s face fall a little more.

“I know you probably won’t stay on Berk,” Stoick continues. “I don’t expect you to. I just wanted to tell you about that.”

Hiccup is quiet for a long while, and Stoick nods to himself and turns away, glancing at Hiccup before realizing he isn’t going to say anything.

“Okay,” he says quietly, and Stoick freezes, turning around. He meets Hiccup’s eyes - nonjudgmental, clear, passive.

Stoick smiles and nods again after a long moment, and then he turns and walks away. Hiccup stares after him, then he flees to the forest and to Toothless. Stoick may not be able to regain his relationship with Hiccup as a father, but… he can be an acquaintance. Maybe a friend, in a long while.

Toothless pounces on him as soon as he enters the cove, and Astrid walks over to him, laughing as he fends off a licking attack from Toothless and rolls out from underneath him, indignantly chirping and clicking  _ no-bad-clothes-wet-no-clean.  _

Toothless laughs, rumbling  _ i-know-don’t-care,  _ and Hiccup flicks the saliva stuck on his hands into Toothless’s eyes. Astrid laughs harder.

“Well, I’m definitely not kissing you this afternoon,” she says as she watches Hiccup wipe Toothless saliva off his face. Hiccup glares at his dragon, who’s gone over to Stormfly, but senses Hiccup’s eyes and turns to look at him.

_ Astrid-no-touch,  _ he chirps, gesturing to her. Astrid watches the interaction, watches Toothless rumble another laugh before walking over. Hiccup rolls his eyes, and then-

_ Clean-now,  _ Toothless warbles smugly as he tackles Hiccup into the lake and sits up, watching him stand up and groan at his now-soaked armor and hair.

Astrid grins and walks over, laughing at Hiccup’s long-suffering look at her, and she takes his hand, pulling him out of the lake. “You’ll be fine.” She gives him a quick kiss on the lips. “There.”

Hiccup glances back at Toothless with a victorious grin, and Toothless growls playfully and leaps at him. Hiccup yelps and hides behind Astrid; Toothless hits both of them and Astrid rolls out from underneath, glancing between the two.

She can barely speak through her laughs. “Toothless, quit bullying Hiccup. You already soaked him in saliva and water, I’m not sure how many other bodily fluids you can soak him in.”

Hiccup glances at her, a knowing smirk on his face, and she glares. “Don’t answer that.”

He stands up as Toothless lets him up, walking over to her, still smirking. “I wasn’t going to. But dragons do produce a lot of fluids that humans don’t.”

Astrid grins. “Like the flammable ones?”

Hiccup’s smirk vanishes. “Well… yeah. I’d really rather not get set on fire, though.”

“Don’t try to answer what draconic fluids you can get soaked in, then,” she fires back, and he sighs, but he’s smiling.

She pulls him in for a longer kiss, one that doesn’t taste of dragon saliva, and he wonders what he ever did to deserve her. She pulls back, smirking, then takes him over to the rock they like to sit by. Hiccup attempts to sit down beside her, but she puts her hands on his arm and holds him there. “Nope, you’re sunbathing. I did not come here to get soaked.”

Hiccup sighs, but he’s still smiling as he lays down on his back, staring up at the clouds. “Can’t believe my dragon is cockblocking me,” he says quietly, smirking, and he glances up to see Astrid’s murderous look.

“If you only wanted to sit beside me to fuck me, I’m going to stab you,” she hisses. Hiccup laughs, and she moves to crouch over him, starting to tickle him mercilessly.

“Okay, okay,” Hiccup gasps desperately between pants, squirming, “I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it!”

Astrid grins. “This is your fault, Hiccup!” she says, and then she starts tickling his neck and he yelps, twisting away from her hands - but they only follow him, and his laughs and yelps get more breathless and even louder as she continues relentlessly.


End file.
